Technology, Support, and News Forum

[yeshuas]

This has been on my mind for a while and has come to the front of my head after seeing a PC vs Mac commercial.

Why doesn't a Mac need anti-virus software?

[Grav!ty Profile]

It does...http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirus ... macvir.htm

Might not have been as prone to attack or infection in the past but that's history

[gries818]

Mac's don't need an anti-virus software because they don't get infected. I mean of course there are Mac viruses out there, but they just haven't gained the prevalence that the Windows viruses have.

Part of that is the fact that less people use Macs so they are as good of a target but part of it is that because the OS is a closed OS, Apple can push out updates faster without having to worry about some of the compatibility problems Microsoft has to worry about. Also, many people argue that the operating system itself is inherently more secure, though the merits of that can be debated.

Through my family members, I admin three Macs (one my own), none with anti-virus software installed. Never had a problem. I also know tons of people with Macs, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody uses anti-virus software - and nobody has had a problem.

[mnemonicj Profile]

The phrase is "Security through obscurity". What it means: If you write virus code for a computer, you want to write the virus to have the largest impact available. Since Microsoft Windows is still by far the most popular operating system without a threat of Apple taking it away from them in the next decade, virus coders write viruses for Windows and ignore Apple.

...Until now. Apple has a large enough market share that virus coders are writing viruses for Apple computers too. Over the past two years, more and more trojans have surfaced for Apple computers and the likelihood that a Mac user will encounter a virus is growing. Apple still seems to claim that you don't need Anti-virus software, but because that was a major selling point of their computers, they are having a hard time changing their minds. Hopefully Apple will change their minds soon enough to make sure that their customers aren't screwed.

[Grav!ty Profile]

Here's a 2002 MacWorld article on protecting against virus infections: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50569

Here's an article yesterday on 15 steps to take to protect against Mac security risks: http://www.macworld.com/article/140268/ ... fixes.html

[gries818]

Well the first article is for Mac OS 9. While it is conceivable some people could be running that, I would consider it very outdated. OS 8 and 9, in my opinion, were comparable to Windows Me in terms of overall crappy-ness.

As for the second article; I've done many of the things already - save getting an anti-virus. I don't download software from anywhere else but trusted companies, so I'm not worried about getting a virus in a pirated version of anything (I'm not pirating any software).

Also, a few of the things mentioned, like disabling file sharing, were done on default at first login. I've never had my Mac in a discoverable mode... it came that way.

[Grav!ty Profile]

Yeah, I think a lot depends on one's online habits. Let's face it, Apple/Mac IS a lot more secure than Windows. I wonder how other Linux based OS's fare?

[gries818]

Well when I run Linux, I don't use an Anti-Virus either.

I would tend to think that because the code is freely available to whoever wants to look at it, flaws get addressed faster than both Mac and Windows flaws.

[imnuts Profile Website]

Mac's don't need an anti-virus software because they don't get infected. I mean of course there are Mac viruses out there, but they just haven't gained the prevalence that the Windows viruses have.

Actually not true. There is a pirated version of iLife or iWork floating around that has a trojan built in, and since it gets installed with "root" privileges, it can essentially take over the system.

Part of that is the fact that less people use Macs so they are as good of a target but part of it is that because the OS is a closed OS, Apple can push out updates faster without having to worry about some of the compatibility problems Microsoft has to worry about. Also, many people argue that the operating system itself is inherently more secure, though the merits of that can be debated.

Windows is closed as well, and MS has historically done a better job addressing security concerns in a more timely fashion than Apple and has also been much more transparent about security issues within their OS and other products. Not all of the Apple OS is closed either, the base system is essentially FreeBSD. The reason that it's more secure in general compared to Windows is that most stuff only has access to user files and not critical system components. Until Vista/Windows 7, programs had free range of all critical system files in Windows and could do as they pleased, but not anymore, so Windows is no longer lacking this security.

mnemonicj put why OS X and Linux/UNIX don't usually need anti-virus software since they have little market share and people want to infect as many machines as possible. However, trojans are going to become more prevalent as Apple gains market share, and the need for an AV program to protect against trojans is going to rise. I'm sure that spyware is going to become an issue at some point as well, possibly sooner. Currently though, the only reason to really have an AV program for a Mac is to prevent forwarding/downloading infected email messages and passing it along to people that have Windows machines.

[yeshuas]

Whoa, I get a few hours sleep and this thread gets slammed with responses, COOL and thank you all for your responses.

Some of the responses, I kind of had an idea about or is what I though or whatever, e.g. fewer computers to infect with Mac/Apple so why bother etc.