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One In Five Macs Holds Malware — For Windows
judgecorp writes "One in five Apple Macs is infected with malware, according to Sophos. But most of that is harmless to the Mac... it is Windows malware ready to be transmitted to the Windows population. Only one in 36 Macs has OS X specific infections."
If the code never can run on Mac OS X, how can Mac OS X be infected? To Mac OS X, it'd just be a useless file full of some kind of data.
Isn't that like 90% of tuberculosis infections? Many people are infected, but only ten percent or so ever develop an active infection, and the rest of them never develop the diseased form at all.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
One in five macs where people chose to install antivirus software have (inactive) Windows malware.
Which is a bit like saying "one in five cars brought to the mechanic get serviced for something." The survey is skewed due to the sample group - most Mac users never install any anti-virus software.
The only places I've seen it installed are on computers in corporate environments where there are already viruses being passed around commonly via email attachment, USB stick, and network drives. These places install antivirus on Macs so users don't forward a virus to Windows users - and it sounds like from this survey, that's with good reason.
Apple's Mail software (and Microsoft's Outlook for Mac) cache attachments locally on the user's disk, so it's very easy to "have" malware and viruses if you just receive email (even without opening it).
It's a bit ridiculous to claim they are "infected" however, and again, the sample group is not really representative. That said, I don't think Macs are in any way immune from viruses. Apple's iOS-like sandboxing and signed-app requirements would likely help OS X considerably in this regard, but of course every decision that increases security by removing control from the user also infuriates free/open software proponents and hackers. Think of jailbreaking iOS and how Apple patches security holes - this is maddening for people who want to jailbreak, but is ultimately an attempt to fix a potential infection vector.
It's always been a good idea to have a virus scanner on a Mac - at the very least, it's a courtesy to users of other platforms who may be more vulnerable to any infectious crap you may pick up without realizing.
(I use OSX exclusively at home)
You want me to pay for an antivirus suite, or devote system resources to it all the time, as 'courtesy to users of other platforms'?
Nah. I'm good.
The last sentence in the article makes their motives clear: “What Mac users really need to do is protect their computers now or risk allowing the malware problem on Macs to become as big as the problem on PCs in the future.”
Sophos simply wants to scare up some more business selling Mac business users their anti-virus software. (At least right now, home users can get it from them for free, at: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx)
I'm in no position to challenge their numbers, but even "1 in 36 Macs" having a Mac specific infection seems awfully high to me. Maybe this last trojan horse that made the rounds pushed that number way up ... but I haven't encountered a single Mac that was infected yet, out of the ones my co-workers own (and always ask me for help with when they have problems), out of the ones we use at home, or out of the ones I support for clients in my side job. I don't think any of my Mac using friends on Facebook mentioned problems with it either.
Regardless? The concern of Macs harboring Windows malware is nothing new... That's been a potential issue for as long as I can remember. I recall the office running Norton anti-virus for the Mac on iMac G3 machines running MacOS 8.6 and 9.1, at one of my old jobs, just for that reason. They didn't want to accidentally spread an infected file they might have gotten via email to a Windows recipient.
The main reason Mac users stopped that practice, as I recall, was the really poor quality of most anti-virus packages when OS X came out. Apple even gave away copies of Virex for OS X to .Mac account holders at one time, and the software bogged down and destabilized the machines so badly, everyone I knew removed it in a matter of days!
Unless you're a business, why would you pay for an AV suite in this day and age?
Unless you're running some old crappy Mac from 8 years ago, why would your big bad super duper Mac even notice the miniscule amount of system resources devoted?
You don't have a problem infecting other people's computers? Thanks a bunch!
I'm not worried about the virus slowing down my computer, I'm worried about it storing kiddie porn on my computer, or stealing documents, or blowing a bunch of bandwidth for a DDOS attack.
No matter if your OS is Windows 5.x, 6.x, Mac OS X 10.x or GNU/Linux Kernel 2.4.x or 2.6.x. If your machine is a desktop run an antivirus.
You owe it to the rest of the world to exterminate viruses/trojans/malware, both the many (or few) that your machine is susceptible to, as well as those that, even though will not infect your machine, will be passed on to someone else... ...because YOU, saavy and enlightened slashdot user, did not catch and exterminated them.
Do it for the unwashed masses, that are clogging the pipes with port scans and attempts to infect, do it to have a tad fewer cheap viagra/penis enlargement offers in your spam folder... do it for the children!!!! :-)
If you "feel confident" (note the quotes) that your OS is "safe", that you use "safe practices", and the AV is a "Waste of resources", then fine, get an AV with a small footprint, both in system resorurces, and in $£¥€, and run it while you are sleeping, so it does not affect your daily work routine.
I am writing this fom Firefox 10.0.3 esr in a Mac with 10.6.8, and I am not scared at all about these developments, but, as safe practice, run ClamXav manually. I scan my machine and its external hard-drives every night, and scan smaller/unknown removable media every time it is inserted. ;-)
So, please my Linux and Mac OS X brothers and sisters, stop being a bunch of snobs, get on with the program, and run an antivirus. :-)
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*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
I don't use p2p, I don't use pron sites, and I don't use Windows or IE. Viruses aren't really a part of my life.
Don't ask me to pay for the shortcomings of the platform you've chosen.