Official antivirus, malware, and firewall FAQ

[chscag]

Nice find Randy. Thanks for posting the link.

[Kiran1]

Do Macs come with any built-in virus protection software?

[Randy B. Singer]

Do Macs come with any built-in virus protection software?

Yes, but Apple doesn't talk about it much, probably to keep the sociopaths who write malware off-guard.

It is called XProtect:
Xprotect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Xprotect Definitions at MacMedics Macintosh Service, Consulting, & Sales For Baltimore, Washington DC, & Philadelphia Blog

This free widget will tell you the last date that XProtect was updated on your computer:

Safe Downloads List Info Widget | brunerd.

XProtect does not look for all of the malware that is out there for the Mac. It just looks for the few pieces of malware that are most dangerous. Here is a list of what malware there is for the Mac, and the threat level of each:

Thomas' Corner : Mac Malware Guide

Note that there currently are no actual viruses in the wild for the
Mac. Also note that of the handful of malware that exists, most of
it is of little concern.

[Chilts]

Ok, I'm a little confused should I have installed Clam XAV or not. If not how do I safely remove.

rgds
Chilts

[chscag]

ClamXav 2 for Mac OS X is perfectly safe to use. It does not use many resources, stays out of your way, and will give you protection against various Windows viruses should you pick one up in an email. Note that Windows viruses have no effect on your Mac but you certainly don't want to pass it on to someone else who may have a Windows machine.

Leave it installed.

[Chilts]

many thanks, I just got a bit spooked by the Mackeeper references which I thought suggested this was also Clam Xav in disguise.

rgds
Chilts

[dtravis7]

If you search on Mac Forums for Mac Keeper you will find it's garbage and to be avoided at all costs! Just a heads up!

[Chilts]

but is this thee same thing as Clam Xav...I'm getting very confused here

[chscag]

No. ClamXav 2 is an Anti-Virus protection application. MacKeeper is pure junk ware supposedly with the ability to "clean" your Mac. What it does instead is cause havoc. They are not, repeat, not the same.

[Randy B. Singer]

but is this thee same thing as Clam Xav...I'm getting very confused here

No, they are not at all the same thing.

The earlier reference was to the fact that the MacKeeper folks are so dishonest that they put up a fake Web page ostensibly for ClamXav, that actually referred folks to an ad for MacKeeper.

The two products are not the same, they aren't from the same company, and it isn't likely that you would ever confuse the two.

As for whether or not you need ClamXav (which is an excellent, legitimate anti-virus product), that is a matter of some debate, as there is little in the way of malware that can infect your Mac. See:

Thomas' Corner : Mac Malware Guide

But, in any case, it can't hurt to have ClamXav.

[Ghost Rider]

I almost bought Mackeeper until I read your guys reviews and saw the complaints on the web and on their Facebook page. So far I do not have any extra virus or malware protection. My Sony, would get infected every so often with malware but the IMac is running perfect

[Randy B. Singer]

Currently there is almost no malware for the Mac that is a serious threat because it is very hard to write malware for the Mac. However, when Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) is released this summer, the challenge presented to writing Mac malware may become insurmountable.

Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Gatekeeper keeps your Mac even safer.

Apple already sees to it that software in the Mac App Store has been checked to make sure that it doesn't contain any malware. With Mountain Lion (ML) Apple will see to it that even software that you don't download from
the Mac App Store has a measure of security. Legitimate Mac software developers
will be issued a unique encrypted certificate code.
That code will allow ML to check to see if individual apps have been
modified (i.e. infected) and it will also allow Apple to keep track of
malware and to keep malware from running on ML via a nightly update.
These steps may see to it that Mac users
never have to give a moment's thought to malware ever again.

[McBie]

I think the gatekeeper concept is great as long as people see that as another layer of defense, not THE layer of defense. It will only work at the moment the malware has reached your machine.
Another layer is preventing malware from reaching your machine.
Then we still have Flash and Java based malware to think about.

The ultimate barrier remains and that is the man at the keyboard ..... Security is more about people and their behavior than it is about machines and their settings.... and sometimes the mouse is faster than the brain.

Having said that, I am happy Apple adopted this concept, it will surely help a lot.

My 2 cents.

Cheers ... McBie

[Randy B. Singer]

The ultimate barrier remains and that is the man at the keyboard

I agree with that, and that is the only form of malware protection that I currently recommend to most Mac users normally. (I recommend that business users have AV software, not because they *need* it, but because it is a "best practices" thing.)

However, the Macintosh is already hard to write malware for. If Apple then adds another layer of protection that will thwart even the very few instances where someone has figured out how to write a piece of malware, it may be that in a very short period of time that Mac users won't have to "be careful" about anything...because there won't be anything to be careful to avoid.

Most malware writers these days are criminals who are in it to make money. If Apple raises the bar on security to the point where, after it takes many months and tens of thousands of dollars to create a piece of malware (that's what it reputedly took to create Mac Defender), and then after that effort a new piece of malware is blacklisted almost immediately so that the authors don't see a significant return on their investment, the incentive to write Mac malware will simply be gone.

Let's hope that things work out that way.

[CPhase2]

I have always leaned toward Trend Micro for both Windows and now my MBP, iPad and iPhone. I do have a question: I read that when running a Windows OS on a Mac (partition style) to use a Windows-native AV program. However, what if I am running Parallels and both OSs are running at the same time? Will my single Mac AV program work, or do I need to have 2 AV programs running just as I have 2 OSs running?