Why don't Mac OS X users use Anti-Virus Products?
Recently, I've noticed a fairly prevalent attitude among people using Mac OS X that anti-virus products are no longer necessary. Frankly, this attitude scares me for the following reasons:
1) While there are not (yet) many Mac OS X-specific viruses/exploits out there, Mac OS X users can still be affected by application-specific exploits like Word Macro viruses.
2) Even though Mac OS X machines will not be affected by them, they can still act as "carriers" for Windows viruses. For example, if you receive an infected attachment to an email and forward it along, the infection will still be viable.
3) While there are many things that Mac OS X does "right" in terms of security, no operating system is completely immune to viruses, Trojan Horses, and other similar exploits. Just because there are no large exploits for Mac OS X today, doesn't mean that there won't be one tomorrow.
With many people lacking virus protection, when (not if) someone writes one for Mac OS X, it will be a very large problem and will cause all kinds of grief, lost data, lost time, bad press, etc. Just keeping our heads in the sand won't protect us. Some people may argue that the Mac's small market share makes it unappealing to virus writers, but (1) the market share appears to be growing (e.g. Merrill Lynch's recent report summarized at http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/05/02/merrill.lynch.apple/) and (2) it only takes one malicious virus/Trojan Horse/exploit to wreak havoc.
The best defense against this is to keep your software (OS, anti-virus, and firewall, in particular) up-to-date. For more information, MacWorld recently published a good overview of security on the Mac--see http://www.macworld.com/2005/02/features/macsecurityhome/index.php.
(5/12/05) Lary Seltzer just wrote a great eWeek column on this same topic. It and the reader comments that follow it are well worth reading.
1) While there are not (yet) many Mac OS X-specific viruses/exploits out there, Mac OS X users can still be affected by application-specific exploits like Word Macro viruses.
2) Even though Mac OS X machines will not be affected by them, they can still act as "carriers" for Windows viruses. For example, if you receive an infected attachment to an email and forward it along, the infection will still be viable.
3) While there are many things that Mac OS X does "right" in terms of security, no operating system is completely immune to viruses, Trojan Horses, and other similar exploits. Just because there are no large exploits for Mac OS X today, doesn't mean that there won't be one tomorrow.
With many people lacking virus protection, when (not if) someone writes one for Mac OS X, it will be a very large problem and will cause all kinds of grief, lost data, lost time, bad press, etc. Just keeping our heads in the sand won't protect us. Some people may argue that the Mac's small market share makes it unappealing to virus writers, but (1) the market share appears to be growing (e.g. Merrill Lynch's recent report summarized at http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/05/02/merrill.lynch.apple/) and (2) it only takes one malicious virus/Trojan Horse/exploit to wreak havoc.
The best defense against this is to keep your software (OS, anti-virus, and firewall, in particular) up-to-date. For more information, MacWorld recently published a good overview of security on the Mac--see http://www.macworld.com/2005/02/features/macsecurityhome/index.php.
(5/12/05) Lary Seltzer just wrote a great eWeek column on this same topic. It and the reader comments that follow it are well worth reading.
posted by Ian Crew at 1:36 PM
1 Comments:
You might be right, but I've found that the anti-virus companies are more interested in selling their own products than in protecting users. I've owned Norton, for example, and it caused more troubles than it ever solved. Not to say that their will never be a virus on a Mac platform, but I'll wait until it happens before I start spending my companies money on anti-virus programs.
Post a Comment
<< Home