spybot - search & destroy for mac?

Man, and i was about to jump onto some users.

2004, took me a while to remember what i was doing back then.

For future generations (?):

OS X is still much more secure than Windows and its user base is much smaller, so it isn't profitable to write viruses for it.

Click to expand...

Of course the user base of 2004 cant be compared to the one in 2009, but still, the "there are no viruses for Mac" slogan should be enough motivation to be the writer of the first virus to successfully infect a Mac, regardless of how many machines it will end up spreading to.


PS: since when it is profitable to write a virus? Yeah, you can get some vital information with some, but most of them is just to **** people off.

edit: argh, caught by the zombie thread!

Suffice to say that shadov's post was never true to start with, and still isn't true now.

Sam B said:

II'm firewalled up the gazoo and know what I'm doing (for the most part) and nothing makes me immune.

Click to expand...

Actually, you can turn the software firewall off on those Macs. It's not doing anything except making it more difficult to iChat, play network games, etc.

But don't take my word for it -- turn off the software firewall, go to ShieldsUP! or similar site, test all your ports every which way they offer. You'll see.

As more and more people use Apple, however, this will change.

Click to expand...

This is the oldest, and dumbest, of the "Mac Security Myths" and was exploded years ago. Hint: the Mac user base has QUINTUPLED in the last six-seven years. STILL NO THREATS. Figure it out.

So... apple's up to what ... 10% of the market

Circa 1987/88 (if memory serves me correctly), Apple computer's share of the marketplace was a whopping 5%. That's why I didn't buy Apple back then - little sw was available and I looked under every nook and cranny. As of 2009, it was @10%. That's not exactly a whopping figure. I couldn't find a later

When I heard a friend tell me she doesn't have any antivirus scanner on her iMac, I groaned. I'm not passing on scare-tactics but rather commonsense.

Sam B said:

... As of 2009, it was @10%. That's not exactly a whopping figure. ...

Click to expand...

4th quarter '09, Apple sold over 3 million computers... so that's roughly in the neighborhood of 10-12 million computers a year.

Exactly how whopping does it have to be????

Need a little help here. I have a MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard installed. I generally use Firefox as my primary browser and Safari for sites that don't like Firefox (like the Canada Revenue Agency). I have WOT (Web of Trust) on my Firefox browser.

I have iAntivirus installed and it hasn't picked up any viruses on my hard-drive.

Somehow or other my email was hijacked and sent out a Viagra sales message to all of my contacts on my Yahoo account. I did get a couple of phishing emails yesterday which I forwarded to the appropriate security addresses so the real companies can deal with them. I'm wondering if these phishing emails may have been the source of the virus/trojan/whatever - perhaps curiosity killed this cat :-S

OK, so now what should I do?

chas_m mentioned the shields up test which I did do. I have my firewall on and in stealth mode, but when I did the tests not all of the ports were listed as stealth. The ones which weren't listed as stealth were listed as closed and nothing was listed as being open. My question is if a hacker saw that these ports were closed would they be able to open them?

@CeeKay7

Your email probably wasn't hijacked. What most likely happened is the spammer got your email address from somebody else and hacked it into the spam to hide their own return address. Unless the emails you think got sent are actually in your Sent folder, that's what happened. If they aren't in your sent folder, you didn't actually send them and basically, there's nothing you should do.

Sam B said:

When I heard a friend tell me she doesn't have any antivirus scanner on her iMac, I groaned.

Click to expand...

I love it that Windows people REFUSE to believe that Macs are virus-free, even though the evidence is right there in front of them.

So, Sam ... how many viruses has your friend who has no anti-virus gotten??

CeeKay7 said:

I have iAntivirus installed and it hasn't picked up any viruses on my hard-drive.
?

Click to expand...

Because there are not any for it to find. And since there isn't now or has there ever been , what exactly is your av program looking for ?


Clay

chas_m said:

I love it that Windows people REFUSE to believe that Macs are virus-free, even though the evidence is right there in front of them.

So, Sam ... how many viruses has your friend who has no anti-virus gotten??

Click to expand...

I cannot explain (technically) why, but I am with you here.

Testimony.

(1) My first mac, sitting on my left here, is a 1987 mac SE (with a 20Mo hard drive). 22.4 years. Still works, on the network, was protected by Disinfectant until the time the Word macro virus came about when Disinfectant got EOLed. During these years, I got only one virus warning.

(2) My 2nd mac, sitting on my left here, is a 1994 mac LC-475. 15.9 years. Used Intego virus prevention until (about) the end of my use of mac OS9. Still alive, on the network. Never caught any virus.

(3) My 3rd mac, used here, is a 2001 iBook. 8.2 years. No antivirus (but an Airport wireless router and a firewall on OS X, both operating). Never caught any virus.

Am I lucky threats never materialized on these 22.4 years of continuous mac usage ? I do not believe I am: for whatever reason, the mac (and more specifically the OSX or Linux breed of mac), has always been and remains more immune to threat than its windows counterpart

HTH

Hi Michaelangelo, love your chapels!

There WERE viruses developed for OS 9 Macs, but that is such ancient history I don't include them when speaking of Macs anymore. The last "outbreak" (and most of them weren't even actually harmful!) was over 12 years ago.

Macs running OS X have never had a virus threat AT ALL to contend with, and are VERY unlikely to have one in the future for the same reason they're so well-protected now: UNIX is actually very secure. This is why the government, the military, your bank and the internet all rely on UNIX.

You don't actually need the software firewall for your iBook on if you are using a router, btw.

trpnmonkey41 said:

its not hard to believe that there is spyware but the thing is is that it doesnt kill a system like it does to a PC.

With a PC you notice everything slowing down and tons of crap in your internet browser.

Whatever spyware there is it doesn't affect the system performance of macs (at least noticeable performance)

Until I notice a slowdown or some solid proof of the spyware I am not too worried

Click to expand...

Open Activity monitor and familiarize yourself with what you should see there under cpu and RAM usage. If it's not open and you don't recognize why it's there, then worry. But I doubt you'll see anything out of the ordinary.

Viruses

Macs aren't immune to viruses, but they are very rare.

Do I really need Mac antivirus software?

'Macs don't get viruses' myth dissolves before public's eyes

Apple Quietly Admits Macs Get Viruses

AaronGatesCarlt said:

Macs aren't immune to viruses, but they are very rare.

Do I really need Mac antivirus software?

'Macs don't get viruses' myth dissolves before public's eyes

Apple Quietly Admits Macs Get Viruses

Click to expand...

Before anyone goes to reading all that gobbledygook.

No Macs are not immune.

However, there are no viruses, no worms, no malware that exists in the wild. (That means outside the lab, on the internet or any other place where you could actually get one of them.)

There are 2 (count em, two) Trojans that currently exist. To become infected with either one of them, you must install it (i.e., there is no drive by infections happening) and provide your master password while doing so.

Both of the above are being distributed through a)pirated (read illegal) software and b) through porn sites that ask you to download their codec to watch that video. If you do neither of these things, then you are virtually safe from any infections at this time.

I really like how the purveyors of anti-virus software and some journalists want all of you ex-windows users to continue spending that $50 a year looking for... well,... nothing.


The A/V companies have been putting out the same propaganda for the 3 + years I've had my Mac and the long time users will tell you they've been doing it for the last 15 years and we're all still waiting for the attacks to occur. One such article had the author admitting when challenged that the last real virus on a Mac was OS 7.4.

And with that, believe I'll close this thread from '04 as we have a sticky related to this topic. As of the date of this writing the very first post there still provides all the info you need to make your own call as to whether you want to install an a/v or not.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/switcher-hangout/23835-official-mac-antivirus-firewall-faq.html

I will tell you, we see around 10 threads from people having real issues with a/v apps they have installed for every one thread we see where someone has gotten one of those couple of Trojans.