Mac snobbery a bit less pronounced today...

[Brad Johnson]

...as over half a million of their vaunted "Macs don't get viruses" machines are infected. 

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/06/how-to-protect-your-mac-against-malware/

All I can say is...





Brad

[Perd Hapley]

I'm curious what 600,000 Macs would equal, percentage-wise, and what percentage of Windows machines are currently infected with a virus. 

[Jamie B]

[mtnbkr]

I'm curious what 600,000 Macs would equal, percentage-wise, and what percentage of Windows machines are currently infected with a virus. 

This.  I'm no Mac fan by any means, but viruses ave been a problem for PCs for 20+ years and we're just now hearing about a Mac virus.  It's hardly a comeuppance.

Chris

[Regolith]

This.  I'm no Mac fan by any means, but viruses ave been a problem for PCs for 20+ years and we're just now hearing about a Mac virus.  It's hardly a comeuppance.

Chris

There have been Mac viruses since there's been Macs. You just don't hear as much about them because of their tiny user base. And the myth that macs don't get virus just makes things worse; after all, if you believe your machine can't get a virus, you don't bother taking precautions against them, like not installing random software of unknown cleanliness which gets a virus right past all of that built-in security. Or you don't update a program with a critical security hole for months, like Apple did in this case, allowing plenty of time for someone to manipulate that hole.

[mtnbkr]

There have been Mac viruses since there's been Macs. You just don't hear as much about them because of their tiny user base. And the myth that macs don't get virus just makes things worse; after all, if you believe your machine can't get a virus, you don't bother taking precautions against them, like not installing random software of unknown cleanliness which gets a virus right past all of that built-in security. Or you don't update a program with a critical security hole for months, like Apple did in this case, allowing plenty of time for someone to manipulate that hole.

Ahh, ok.  Macs aren't relevant to me personally or professionally, so I was unaware of their history regarding viruses.

Chris

[never_retreat]

Say I was a hacker, would I rather spend my time writing a virus that will effect 95 percent of the computers in the world or 2 percent?
Don't quote me on the percentages but its got to be that close.

[charby]

...as over half a million of their vaunted "Macs don't get viruses" machines are infected. 

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/06/how-to-protect-your-mac-against-malware/

Brad

That was so February when the attack was first announed, and yes people didn't react.

[BridgeRunner]

Now if only the PC snobbery would tone a little, get could all just on with our day.

[S. Williamson]

Macs are great for music/art/engineering applications, but suck wind for games.
PCs are used by 80% of the business world and cross-compatibility is good, but a ton of viruses out there are a constant threat.
Linux is can be used in several different applications quite well and is open-source, but has near-zero customer support for any end user who isn't a programmer.

The more people realize that all computers suck, the happier they'll be. (with apologies to Tamara from THR)

[Boomhauer]

PCs are used by 80% of the business world and cross-compatibility is good, but a ton of viruses out there are a constant threat.

You see, here's the deal. I protect my PC using a free antivirus software, the built in windows firewall, and common sense (i.e., don't visit sites looking for porn or pirating TV shows). Things go fine for me. Windows doesn't suck for me.

If I wanted to be a programmer, then yeah I'd look at Linux. I just want to be able to do *expletive deleted*it with a computer so Windows works well.

[mtnbkr]

You see, here's the deal. I protect my PC using a free antivirus software, the built in windows firewall, and common sense (i.e., don't visit sites looking for porn or pirating TV shows). Things go fine for me. Windows doesn't suck for me.

If I wanted to be a programmer, then yeah I'd look at Linux. I just want to be able to do *expletive deleted* with a computer so Windows works well.

I do much the same myself.  I'm very comfortable with Linux (desktop user for 3-4 years, use it daily at work) and would be fine using it home as my primary desktop OS, but since I'm able to keep my PC virus-free without herculean efforts, and because Windows is a compatibility no-brainer, I stick with Windows.

Mac just doesn't offer anything for me.  The BSD side feels dumbed down, and the "easy to use GUI" side is just different enough from Windows to make it annoying to me.  I'm sure I could get used to it, but there's no compelling reason to bother.

Chris

[RevDisk]

Now if only the PC snobbery would tone a little, get could all just on with our day.

What PC snobbery?  Only folks I can think of are gamers.  Most Window users fully acknowledge the many faults of MS products.

Also, Macs ARE PCs.  They now use the same hardware and chips.  Only the OS is different, which is BSD with a pretty GUI.

[Regolith]

Macs are great for music/art/engineering applications

Eh. Hardware is more important for those applications than software. Particularly when you get into big Photoshop or 3d rendering jobs, where your video card has the greatest effect. When I was in college the multimedia lab had a bunch of Mac towers that were running dual core processors  and had something like 8 GBs of ram, but were running nVidia GeForce 7600s with only 256mb of onboard ram, which was the best that Mac offered at that time. My Windows XP PC with a measly 2GB of RAM, running an Athlon 64 2.4Ghz single core processor was able to render a 3D movie 2-3x faster simply because it had a better video card (GeForce 7900GT with 512MB of RAM).

As RevDisk said, Macs anymore are just PCs running a Mac OS, which means you can get a Windows or Linux (if you can get the software to run) PC to do anything a Mac can do, and you have a wider selection of hardware to do it with.

Which OS you choose basically comes down to is preference.

[Harold Tuttle]

Don't allow foreign apps to have admin access and run little snitch, FTW

[Fitz]

This just in, computers are vulnerable to viruses, particularly when their owners are friggin morons!


In other news, water is wet.





OS doesn't matter. An idiotic user is an idiotic user. Period.



Fitz

(mac AND pc user. Suck it, trebek.)

[Nick1911]

What PC snobbery?  Only folks I can think of are gamers.  Most Window users fully acknowledge the many faults of MS products.

Also, Macs ARE PCs.  They now use the same hardware and chips.  Only the OS is different, which is BSD with a pretty GUI.

Well said.

[De Selby]

Are there any PCs you can run without virus protection software, with all of its constant updates?

I bought a Mac to avoid the virus scanning rat race.  Seems to do ok (didn't get the virus).

[Fitz]

You should not do that on ANY computer, MAC or otherwise

[De Selby]

You should not do that on ANY computer, MAC or otherwise

Can you recommend a good virus protection product for the Mac?

[RevDisk]

Can you recommend a good virus protection product for the Mac?

http://usa.kaspersky.com/products-services/home-computer-security/anti-virus-for-mac

Virtually any modern OS is fairly immune to viruses, et al if you keep your software up to date. User education is the biggest part of stopping malware. You will never be able to get rid of malware as long as you have users that do not wish to use good habits.

Which will not happen. So, it's a wise idea to run some sort of automated security package. Even my linux servers have IDS's and whatnot. Snort and samhain are quite nice.

[mtnbkr]

I can't remember the last time I got a virus or even a notification that my antivirus removed an infection.  That said, I pretty much only use MS's antivirus and antimalware tools these days.  They're part of the normal Windows update routine and seem to work well.

And to 2nd what Rev said, HIDS+NIDS FTW (HIPS and NIPS even more awesomer).

If you want to go deep down the rabbit hole, add Splunk and build some reports to add SIEM functionality.  That takes money and hardware though.  Splunk isn't cheap and requires a bit of horsepower if you have a lot of log data to chew through.

Chris

[Perd Hapley]

+1

Cause if I agree with it, people will assume I understood all of that geek-talk.

[lupinus]

No OS is immune to a virus, Mac just gets less air time because there are so relative few.

I've been a Windows user almost exclusively, except for the occasional playing around with linux for S's&G's.

I can count on one hand the number of serious virus issues I've had and still have a couple fingers free. And most of those were in, my, um, younger more experimental days.

These days the scanner picks up little if anything. It most used feature is blocking/warning me of the occasional website I come across in Google searches.