Does a macbook need an anti virus

macman

Try Sophos:
http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition/download.aspx

forgotmyname

Apple products are not as secure as most Apple users think.

Most say well i have had one for x years and never had a virus. Ask them what anti-virus they use and they say none. So they wouldnt know if they had one would they.

Sitting in the background quietly stealing data.

Ask print shops and graphic design studio's. Been a long time since ive been in that business but everything came back infected.

esuhl

TheSaint wrote: »

The mac is just as full of holes as a Microsoft or Linux platform, it is just that with more users on windows the malware writers put most of their effort where they can have the biggest impact.

That's not entirely true -- Windows OSes are much more vulnerable than Mac/Unix/Linux ones due to their security model and implementation.

Mondez

esuhl wrote: »

That's not entirely true -- Windows OSes are much more vulnerable than Mac/Unix/Linux ones due to their security model and implementation.

This used to be the case with Windows XP and below, but the security model has been greatly improved since then and the main vunerabilities that let malware install are now users clicking and agreeing to things they shouldn't, just like on OS X and Linux, or by flaws in 3rd party software (again just like on OS X or Linux). Don't get me wrong, I don't really care all that much for windows, especially the direction its going in from a UI perspective, but from a security POV its not quite the leaky sieve it used to be.

Mr_Toad

I've been a Mac user for several years and before that Linux and the simple answer is yes you should have AV.

It's has nothing to do with the OS and it's susceptibility or other wise. Virus writers and the creators of malware play the numbers game.

In my contacts list there are only two other Mac users, about 25% are Linux, the rest are Windows users. Why annoy ten people when you can annoy ten thousand and there are far more Windows users out there than anything else so they get targeted.

I use Sophos AV, not to protect myself so much but to identify and kill any virus or malware aimed at the Windows users. I don't want to pass a virus on in an email that's doing the rounds. Infected PCs are in nobody's interest except the halfwits and criminals and I think every machine should play its part in killing off a virus or malware.

Mr_Toad

Mondez wrote: »

This used to be the case with Windows XP and below, but the security model has been greatly improved since then and the main vunerabilities that let malware install are now users clicking and agreeing to things they shouldn't, just like on OS X and Linux, or by flaws in 3rd party software (again just like on OS X or Linux). Don't get me wrong, I don't really care all that much for windows, especially the direction its going in from a UI perspective, but from a security POV its not quite the leaky sieve it used to be.

Windows can be as secure as any OS, even XP. We had XP machines at work that were locked down so tight you could only do what the Admin people decided you could do.

The problem was home users simply didn't like it, being asked repeatedly if they were sure they wanted to do whatever or asked to type in their password was seen as an intrusion and an annoyance so they turned it off.

Not one of the PCs I support for friends has user or access control turned on and every user has admin rights. I've tried to explain that this is why they get the problems they do but they won't listen. :mad:

wba31

I use iAntivirus which is free (and has an original name!), it works well and is updated regularly

esuhl

Mondez wrote: »

This used to be the case with Windows XP and below, but the security model has been greatly improved since then and the main vunerabilities that let malware install are now users clicking and agreeing to things they shouldn't, just like on OS X and Linux, or by flaws in 3rd party software (again just like on OS X or Linux). Don't get me wrong, I don't really care all that much for windows, especially the direction its going in from a UI perspective, but from a security POV its not quite the leaky sieve it used to be.

True, but because Vista and onwards had to remain compatible with most code written for XP, the security model wasn't re-done properly, it uses registry virtualisation, shims and user elevation techniques that have been retrospectively added to the old security model.

It's certainly a lot better than it used to be, but Mac an Linux OSes are still fundamentally more secure than Windows OSes.

As well as the better security model, Linux, being open source, probably has a lot more people working on it and examining the source code than Windows does.

forgotmyname

Maybe this will help you decide...

Still 22,000 infected machines connecting to one server...Guess how many of them think their machines are virus free. Its a MAC they dont get infected do they?

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/its-alive-once-prolific-flashback-trojan-still-infecting-22000-macs/

securityguy

esuhl wrote: »

.

As well as the better security model, Linux, being open source, probably has a lot more people working on it and examining the source code than Windows does.

I'm afraid that's a statement more of hope than of reality. The debacle over the random number generator in Debian's port of OpenSSL was an absolutely disaster: it meant that there were a number of SSL certificates in circulation that could be broken in less than a second. There existing secure code was broken by a developer, working in the open, subject to the full process of review and inspection that open source should give (if Eric Raymond is to be believed), and no-one noticed for about eighteen months. Had instead the RNG been being broken by someone with nefarious intent who set out to cover their tracks, it would have been a lot longer.

Audit by one person who knows what they're doing is preferable to audit by ten who don't. This debacle started out with someone auditing the code, not realising what they were looking at, and applying a "fix" which broke it.

You can read about it starting here.