Virus Myths

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does a virus have to be self executing and replicating to be considered a virus?

Yes it has to self replicate to be a virus

THere are a handful of trojans out there, but they need to fool people in to installing them, so they have never been able to spread beyond a tiny minority of OSX users
 
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is this the 1st virus for the Mac?

No.

is there really such thing as a virus for OS X?

No.

does a virus have to be self executing and replicating to be considered a virus?

Yes.
 
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Macs are not 'immune' to viruses and they never were. No computer is.

The simple fact though, is that there simply aren't any viruses for OS X.

Articles like that have been written for the past 9 years (since OS X was introduced).
There still aren't any viruses for OS X.
The link itself is almost 4 years old (and it stars our very own Benjamindaines, :) )
It also describes a trojan attack, not a virus. Trojans have always been a threat for ANY computer system.
That particular trojan has been cleared up and patched for years now.

Also take a look on where your article is from... MSNBC.... a very sad attempted case of fearmongering.
 
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so that didnt happen to that guys computer? it was made up?
.....
The link itself is almost 4 years old ....
It also describes a trojan attack, not a virus. Trojans have always been a threat for ANY computer system.
That particular trojan has been cleared up and patched for years now.
Really, this link is nothing new and this topic isn't anything new.
If you did a forum search, you would find quite a few threads on this same thing.

To sum them all up, here are the key points to know and remember:

1. There haven't been and aren't any current viruses for Mac OS X.
2. Macs running OS X are not impervious to viruses, there just aren't any viruses for OS X.
3. A worm, trojan or other malware that requires user input and/or permission to install and run is not the same thing as a virus.
4. ALL computer users, regardless of the OS they use, should use caution and keen judgment when surfing online.
 
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He downloaded a trojan, which supposedly included an IM worm.

A trojan is not a virus. It relies on the user taking some action to work.

A worm is very close to a virus, but the worm part of that trojan
A) didn't seem to work very well, and
B) has never been seen again.

The article is sensationalist and inaccrurate, which may be due to the fact that it is from MSNBC, a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC.
 

bobtomay

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