spybot - search & destroy for mac?

Hi, My very first post and my very first Mac. I was wondering are there any softwares like spybot - search & destroy. I love this program on my PC. Any help will be great.

you will be pleased to know that it is unneccesary in OS X. When I made the switch in July I asked about the same thing since I used S&D and Ad-Aware on my PCS

trpnmonkey41 said:

you will be pleased to know that it is unneccesary in OS X. When I made the switch in July I asked about the same thing since I used S&D and Ad-Aware on my PCS

Click to expand...

Thanks, but can you explain it to me why it is unneccesary in OS X?

it would be like your the only person in the world putting up a home security system... the threat just isnt there, so why have it?

Maybe we should put in a little more explanation into this.

Basically, unlike Windows, Spyware can't really install itself to your Mac like it does on a Windows Box and about 99.9% of all spyware is programmed to install itself to Windows only.

There is not threat

sildenafil said:

Thanks, but can you explain it to me why it is unneccesary in OS X?

Click to expand...

OSX is unix based and under unix it is extremely difficult for applications like web browsers to do anything nasty, thy can't for example go off and run code as the root user or make changes to system files in the same way they can (by design, thanks Bill) on PCs.

Under other unixes it is possible to have problems if you run the browser as root user, under OSX this is virtually impossible for the ordinary user to do so you are very safe. (you may notice that every now and then, like when installing upgrades, you are prompted for the admin password, even that isn't "root" in the normal sense, to get to be root user you have to purposefully go and do some black magic)

Make sure you have the firewall enabled and use Safari or Mozilla with Pop-Ups disabled and you should find painless surfing to be the norm rather than the exception.

Amen-Moses

Good explanation Amen-Moses.

Amen-Moses said:

OSX is unix based and under unix it is extremely difficult for applications like web browsers to do anything nasty, thy can't for example go off and run code as the root user or make changes to system files in the same way they can (by design, thanks Bill) on PCs.

Under other unixes it is possible to have problems if you run the browser as root user, under OSX this is virtually impossible for the ordinary user to do so you are very safe. (you may notice that every now and then, like when installing upgrades, you are prompted for the admin password, even that isn't "root" in the normal sense, to get to be root user you have to purposefully go and do some black magic)

Make sure you have the firewall enabled and use Safari or Mozilla with Pop-Ups disabled and you should find painless surfing to be the norm rather than the exception.

Amen-Moses

Click to expand...

thanks so much for your great explanation.

Amen-Moses said:

OSX is unix based and under unix it is extremely difficult for applications like web browsers to do anything nasty, thy can't for example go off and run code as the root user or make changes to system files in the same way they can (by design, thanks Bill) on PCs.

Under other unixes it is possible to have problems if you run the browser as root user, under OSX this is virtually impossible for the ordinary user to do so you are very safe. (you may notice that every now and then, like when installing upgrades, you are prompted for the admin password, even that isn't "root" in the normal sense, to get to be root user you have to purposefully go and do some black magic)

Make sure you have the firewall enabled and use Safari or Mozilla with Pop-Ups disabled and you should find painless surfing to be the norm rather than the exception.

Amen-Moses

Click to expand...

Unfortunately it isn't that simple.

Admin = root. Perhaps not if you are just average user. But if attacker gains admin password, he/she/it can do anything that root user can. Secondly it takes only a little social engineering to make large enough percent of users (those who don't know much about computers) to type the admin password for virus.

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. Worms can't propagate because there isn't (enough) known remote root exploits. Email virus won't work because there are too few macs out there (Virus infects a mac system, finds 20 email addresses, sends itself to them... 19 of them are Windows machines and the one mac user happens to have some clue and doesn't click that attachment).

Spyware is another story. I don't think it needs to run as root to gather all the data it wants, connect to remote server and hand over that data. And since spyware comes integrated with other software (like RealOne Player) it doesn't need to do any voodoo to get that admin password to install itself.

Spyware might not be as big problem on OS X as it is on Windows. But I think it is a problem, just a small one.

shadov said:

Unfortunately it isn't that simple.

Admin = root.

Click to expand...

Well a virus that could gain access via the keychain could do a lot of damage to installed applications but the OS itself is still pretty well protected. There is a subtle difference between the admin account which only has write privileges to the apps and utils areas and root which has access to all.

The protection under Mac OSX is as good or possibly slightly better tan that under other flavours of unix, basically the tip is don't run anything suspect as root user.

Amen-Moses

The admin user and the root user are not equal. The admin user is limited privilege. As the admin user in order to get more privilege, you need to use the sudo command.

One thing that make the OS X a little more secure, is that not all of the system processes are enabled.

No spyware = No Spybot.

Mr.Curlynose1 said:

No spyware = No Spybot.

Click to expand...

But there is a spyware detector for Mac. So there must be spyware. Right? The question is how much.

Amen-Moses said:

The protection under Mac OSX is as good or possibly slightly better tan that under other flavours of unix, basically the tip is don't run anything suspect as root user.

Click to expand...

I agree that OS X is one of the most secure desktop operating systems out there. But no system is foolproof.

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

trpnmonkey41 said:

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

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

Click to expand...

You can easily avoid spyware slowdown on Windows just by using a better browser and not installing crap from weird sites.

If you are only worried about slowdown, then there is nothing to worry about on Mac. If you are anal about your privacy...

I admit I haven't looked too closely on spyware issue in OS X because I haven't installed much third party closed source stuff yet. I'll install a detector when I find a good one and let you know if it finds anything.

shadov said:

You can easily avoid spyware slowdown on Windows just by using a better browser and not installing crap from weird sites.

Click to expand...

Some people might consider mozilla.org a weird site, in which case those two goals are mutually exclusive.

StarManta said:

Some people might consider mozilla.org a weird site, in which case those two goals are mutually exclusive.

Click to expand...

LOL. True. That's why I usually install the better browser (tm) myself when I have to build/fix a windows box for someone. And I usually put in Opera instead of Mozilla.

I've found 2 different keystroke loggers on my computer in the last 3 years. Not a severe security threat, but a threat nonetheless. I only know of one program to scan for such things, MacScan, and that seems to be unavailable at the moment (my beta version has expired). Anyone know of an alternative to MacScan?

Mac security

im a new mac user too and coming from windows, im paranoid about bugs.
just to ease my mind, i just ran a free house call from trendmicro.com and found nothing.

Wow, this is an old thread!

Was interesting to see some of the comments about Mozilla back then...