Apple has issued a technical note about Mac antivirus software, and, for the first time, suggests that Macs need such software. The note says: "Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult." The note then goes on to mention three antivirus programs, with Intego VirusBarrier X5 listed first.It is worth noting this, since Apple, especially in its recent "Get a Mac" ads, has always publicly tried to ignore the threat of malware to Macs, as well as other security issues. We can only applaud the fact that Apple has chosen to recognize that Macs face security risks and that they require protection.
News source: blog.intego.com
"It doesn't matter how good third party AV really is; tell the customers they should have it, and Apple is off the hook if any customer ever becomes infected."
Makes perfect sense.
Apple has recommended AV for a while with that bulletin. That bulletin wasn't recently created "for the first time", but has been around for a while. Here is a google cache from July: http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:TB9FIG...;cd=1&gl=us
Not sure how long that bulletin has been there. But I doubt the blogger source would be inclined to look it up.
Just to clarify, yes, it is good that Apple recommends this. But no, it is not an epiphany that they just now had.
EDIT: Apple doesn't seem to have any way to view document revisions, so that google archive was as far back as I could see in 10 minutes of looking. Would be nice to see the initial release date.
Last edited by markjensen on 30 Nov 2008 - 14:52
Well, if we head on to The Internet Archive, it shows signs the article is indeed new:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://suppor...e.com/kb/HT2550
... if it's old, it should look like this:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://support.apple.com/
You mustn't have looked that hard or you would have found that out.
Last edited by LTD on 30 Nov 2008 - 15:07
And now Apple is eating its own words because it now got scared of viruses.
Ohuhuhuuuhuuu, virus ghosts haunting Macs, install anti-virus now for safety!!!
Nice flamebait. Perhaps Apple are just trying to prevent viruses from spreading to Windows hosts, especially since OS X can read/write SMB hosts...
How nice of Apple! /sarcasm
Too many procrastinators with time to prove anyone wrong.
That's true but I just don't see the need to make others unnecessarily angry. The Mac guys started it tbh, PC guys were like "yeah uh ok use what you use" until Apple themeselves started messing with PC users.
No, you say it's not.
I've been on a Mac for 2 years and a half now, never formatted, never had malware, spyware nor viruses and never been hacked either. The worst thing I had is Safari opening a couple of unwanted popups, but the thing is, it behaved correctly, it's just the webmasters who know the flaws of the standards that are established.
Oh yeah, I also received a few phishing emails on my hotmail accounts, but I also use my intelligence a little for those. Safari could simply block those websites, but not yet...
I never installed any specific program to make my computer more secure either. Leopard did its job.
My bottom line is : Leopard is very secure and hard to breach.
Everybody who say "it's total crap", write viruses, malware, and stuff like that and let me test it. I'll be glad to do so. Seriously.
Relatively speaking, it's quite secure by design.
Remember that "Unix" is a family of systems. If you were to enumerate what constitutes "Unix" today, you would get maddening diversity: in architectures, interfaces, flavors, distributions, and many more. Even apparently similar Unix systems, such as two Linux distributions, might be different enough to warrant considerable extra "work", if an attacker were to create (the easy part) and deploy (the hard part), say, a virus. Creating malware, as we have seen, is a technical problem, easily solved on any platform. Spreading malware involves operational and situational issues, which are apparently less of an obstacle on Windows than any other platform.
Of course, the situation has changed with respect to Windows security. It's become quite robust. But also keep in mid that Apple issues regular security updates:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
Remember that "Unix" is a family of systems. If you were to enumerate what constitutes "Unix" today, you would get maddening diversity: in architectures, interfaces, flavors, distributions, and many more. Even apparently similar Unix systems, such as two Linux distributions, might be different enough to warrant considerable extra "work", if an attacker were to create (the easy part) and deploy (the hard part), say, a virus. Creating malware, as we have seen, is a technical problem, easily solved on any platform. Spreading malware involves operational and situational issues, which are apparently less of an obstacle on Windows than any other platform.
Of course, the situation has changed with respect to Windows security. It's become quite robust. But also keep in mid that Apple issues regular security updates:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
No, UNIX is a specific operating system created by Bell Labs in 1969 that is currently owned by The Open Group. It is not a "family." BSD, Linux, et al are clones of UNIX that have a similar architecture.
Remember that "Unix" is a family of systems. If you were to enumerate what constitutes "Unix" today, you would get maddening diversity: in architectures, interfaces, flavors, distributions, and many more. Even apparently similar Unix systems, such as two Linux distributions, might be different enough to warrant considerable extra "work", if an attacker were to create (the easy part) and deploy (the hard part), say, a virus. Creating malware, as we have seen, is a technical problem, easily solved on any platform. Spreading malware involves operational and situational issues, which are apparently less of an obstacle on Windows than any other platform.
Of course, the situation has changed with respect to Windows security. It's become quite robust. But also keep in mid that Apple issues regular security updates:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
No, UNIX is a specific operating system created by Bell Labs in 1969 that is currently owned by The Open Group. It is not a "family." BSD, Linux, et al are clones of UNIX that have a similar architecture.
One of the strengths of the free software/open source world is that there is much diversity. Just because a particular system is running bind8.00, for example, is no guarantee that it is infectable in the same way, since it might be running under FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, BeOS, MacOSX, Solaris, Irix, SunOS (unlikely, but possible), AIX, etc.
Diversity constitutes the key feature of each of these examples: diversity of file permissions by user ID, diversity of email clients, diversity of versions of a word processor. By constrast, the Windows computing culture constitutes a monoculture. Virtually all users run the same word processor, the same web browser, the same email client and the same web server, on the same hardware. Any flaw in one piece of the system allows a single virus (or worm) to infect all of the systems. With Linux in particular, every distribution is different. Even if there was a security vulnerability in one distribution, it is unlikely that another distribution would be affected by this.
As for OS X (and BSD) specifically, BSD is a very old operating system. The basis of the BSD kernel dates back to version 4.4 released in the early 1990s. The 4.4 BSD kernel is based on the 4.2 BSD kernel released in the early 1980s. BSD has been around a long time and has been hardened over that time. To Apple's credit, they chose to use the Mach-based micro-kernel with the BSD personality layer that emphasizes the minimal use of the kernel for providing system services. Using Mach services, Apple implemented everything as separate processes which helps partition other processes. This will prevent a vulnerability in one area from affecting another. If you look at the vulnerabilities identified in Mac OS X, you will find that they are less than catastrophic and do not affect multiple functions of the system.
I've been on a PC since Windows 3.1 and never had any either. Only time I format is when I go to a new OS. This XP install is going on 4 years with no format. What's your point.
Remember that "Unix" is a family of systems. If you were to enumerate what constitutes "Unix" today, you would get maddening diversity: in architectures, interfaces, flavors, distributions, and many more. Even apparently similar Unix systems, such as two Linux distributions, might be different enough to warrant considerable extra "work", if an attacker were to create (the easy part) and deploy (the hard part), say, a virus. Creating malware, as we have seen, is a technical problem, easily solved on any platform. Spreading malware involves operational and situational issues, which are apparently less of an obstacle on Windows than any other platform.
Of course, the situation has changed with respect to Windows security. It's become quite robust. But also keep in mid that Apple issues regular security updates:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
Look, if hackers wanted to hack Macs..deploy viruses...they could easily. There is no profit in hacking Macs because corporations primarily use Windows based machines to do the majority of the work. Macs are used in a lot of companies for graphics and video editing. There for they contain no key data hackers are looking for. No OS is secure, period.
I really wish I could flip a switch for a day and make Macs more used than PCs. Switch the tables a little. Then everyone will shutup and Macs being virus free and safe. I am not ragging on Apple or Macs, just stating a fact that has been said over and over by many other people better than I.
Maybe you didn't actually click on the links on the Apple page? It links right to the Apple store, where you can purchase these fine products from Apple!
Last edited by LTD on 01 Dec 2008 - 19:06
You are one of the people are going to be screwed if anything does happen...and it will...just a matter of time.
I dont get internet attacks on my home PC at all. Doesnt mean I don have a firewall in place just in case something does happen. I also dont get spyware/viruses on my PCs at all...although I still have protection.
With what will their Mac get infected with? I don't know of any virus in the wild.
You say there isn't "a lot of crap". I guess "zero" qualifies as not a lot, eh?
With what will their Mac get infected with? I don't know of any virus in the wild.
You say there isn't "a lot of crap". I guess "zero" qualifies as not a lot, eh?
There have been viruses and attacks on Macs before...do a Google search if you cannot remember. But its common sense to have protection just in case. I have flood insurance on my house and I live in a desert. Will my house ever flood? Probably not but then again who knows when a water main or pipe in my house will break and cause flooding. The insurance is there just in case.
People are putting blind faith in Apple assuming that their OS will always be safe and secure. This kind of ignorance is what gets people in trouble.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/25/mac_exposure/
Last edited by techbeck on 03 Dec 2008 - 19:31
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.