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Tasmanian Dept. of Education Wants Anti-Virus for Linux, OS X
An anonymous reader writes "One of Australia's largest government technology buyers, the Tasmanian Department of Education, has gone to market for a security vendor to supply anti-virus software for its 40,000-odd desktop PCs and laptops, as well as servers. But the department's not just running Windows — it runs Mac OS X and Linux as well, and has requested that whatever solution it buys must be able to run on those platforms as well. But have we reached the stage were Mac OS X and Linux even need third-party security software? It seems like most Mac and Linux users don't run it."
A computer can still pass on a virus even if it cannot directly infect you. It might not be your responsibility but will a child know this? If he forwards an attachment unwittingly or something?
Linux users and Mac users could accidentally infect a Windows user.
If you exchange documents and files with other users, having anti-virus and anti-malware software or not is not only an issue for your own protection.
Even if you run on a system that you believe to be safe from those kinds of infections, you might spread it to other users if you ever pass on files that you get from others.
This might not be of any importance to you personally, but in a large organization it might be of vital importance that malicious software can't "hide" in unprotected systems of other flavours that it was designed for.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
1 group will claim GNU/Linux doesn't need anti virus software.
2nd group will claim they use antivirus on their GNU/Linux already, but only to clean emails destined for MS Windows machines or to look after their Samba exported storage.
3rd group will say GNU/Linux needs AV software because it's only a matter of time before viruses (virii?) appear.
4th group will say viruses for GNU/Linux already exist and provide links to some sensationalist articles on the interwebs where researchers published some concepts.
5th group (partially composed of group 1 and 2) will claim they're not real viruses, but worms/snakes/butterflies/etc...
6th group will claim the threat aren't viruses but PPAs in ubuntu.
3rd/4th group will return saying it's all about users and not the OS. And because they're careful users, they've never in their life needed AV on their MS Windows.
Does that about cover that? Let the holy war begin...
This is probably just a policy issue. "We've put your AIX / HP-UX / Solaris server in". "What AV does it run?" "Er, it's running AIX / HP-UX / Solaris , we've not installed AV". "But our policy says we have to use product X or product Y to AV protect all our servers". "Yes, but you're not understan....." "Just install AV".
There's 90% of Windows malware wiped out. The user is, always has been and will always be the biggest source of infection. Even in the Windows world and especially today when a patched Win 7 and Office suite aren't vulnerable to drive by infections.
What does Windows have to do with anything, the statement was that there's "more OS X and Linux malware around then you might expect", which (at least to me) implies that this amount of malware is substantial enough to care about.
I love how Mac fanboys need to move the goal posts to justify their positions. But here you go anyway
Great, ram your point across by throwing stereotypes around, that's really going to help your argument /s
No doubt you have some wonderfully convenient excuse to ignore this.
No wonderfully convenient "excuse" is necessary here, because your 'list of OS X threats' is laughable and does nothing but disproving your own argument. In 10 years of OS X history, apparently only 43 pieces of malware have been identified, most of which are Trojans, which -in your own words- depend on the user as 'the biggest source of infection', and for which antivirus software completely unnecessary. If anything, that list proves that OS X is more or less immune to viruses and malware, and that a fully patched OS X install does not need antivirus, just common sense.
From your own signature:
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
And what does calling someone a 'Mac fanboy' make you?
The DoD's reasoning is pretty straightforward. There are few to no "in the wild" viruses or trojans for Linux/Mac (several worms though), but data rarely stays in one platform in an interconnected world. We put virus protection on every platform so that whenever a document or program is introduced on the network it gets scanned. That way if it has malware in it, even Windows malware on a Linux/Mac system, it's caught early. Just because I first put the document on a Linux system doesn't mean it's going to stay on a Linux system.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
We put virus protection on every platform so that whenever a document or program is introduced on the network it gets scanned. That way if it has malware in it, even Windows malware on a Linux/Mac system, it's caught early. Just because I first put the document on a Linux system doesn't mean it's going to stay on a Linux system.
It's like getting a flu shot -- you're not only protecting yourself from the flu, but others as well.