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Antivirus Software for the Apple Mac

I don't need antivirus software on the Mac, but I run it anyway.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walter S. Mossberg is fond of saying that Macintosh users don't need antivirus software. For example, in today's column about "craplet" software on new PCs, he writes,

"An excellent way to avoid or minimize the craplet problem is to simply buy an Apple Macintosh computer. New Macs don't have any craplets displayed on their desktops. On a new Mac, no third-party software is automatically launched when you start the computer, and you don't need antivirus or antispyware programs because the Mac is essentially free from those menaces."

I agree with Mossberg that antivirus software isn't needed for the Mac today. Nevertheless, I run antivirus software on my Apple MacBook laptop. I've also recommended to my father that he run antivirus software on the Mac Mini that he has at his home.

I run antivirus software on a computer that doesn't need it to protect myself against a legal risk, not a technical one, since I use my Mac for Web banking. There is a risk to Web banking, of course. One of those risks is that somebody will get your password and drain your account. These days, many brokerage firms that offer Web banking have some kind of guarantee in which they promise that they will reimburse you for any money lost as a result of unauthorized transactions. But there is a hitch: they will only reimburse you if you are running antivirus on your computer.

For example, Schwab's privacy policy (revised July 1, 2006) states that customers should keep their computer and browser software current with security updates, install and update antivirus and antispyware software, and use a personal firewall. Apple's Mac OS has a built-in firewall, but it doesn't have built-in antivirus or antispyware software. So if you were using Schwab and lost money for some reason, Schwab wouldn't have to honor its guarantee if you were not running antivirus. My brokerage company has a similar policy.

This policy is not just for Web banking. One of the organizations where I work demands that I have antivirus installed on my computer before I put that computer on the company's local area network (LAN). Not having antivirus installed is a security offense.

What's truly ironic here is that the antivirus programs on the Mac spend most of their time looking for PC viruses, not Mac viruses. That's because, as Mossberg points out, there are few, if any, actively rampaging viruses that affect Mac users. It's tempting to think that this is because the Mac is a superior operating system, but it's really just because the Mac is the minority. If Apple ever gets popular--really popular--then we're sure to see spyware and viruses on the Mac, just as we see them on other computer platforms.

Indeed, I have seen spyware-like programs on the Mac before. A few years ago, my wife had her Mac's Web browser loaded up with toolbars and other "helpful" programs that monitored every website she visited and sent this information back to a few large corporations in California that used them for marketing purposes. Such programs are widely available today. Download them onto your Mac, and you, too, can have a Mac that's filled with spyware.

Tags: apple, software, spyware programs, virus protection, macintosh

Comments

	Antivirus software for Mac bigpoppo on 04/13/2007 at 7:26 AM
Posts: 1 Avg Rating:	The article on "Antivirus Software for the Apple Mac" points out the need for this type of software, but since most such software is more trouble than it si worth what antivirus software is recommend? Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: Antivirus software for Mac wbdeville on 04/14/2007 at 7:33 PM
Posts: 10 Avg Rating:	I don't run anti-virus software on my Macs. But if I were to install such software, it would probably be the donation-ware ClamXav <http://www.clamxav.com/>. If I were to spend money, my choice would be Intego's VirusBarrier. There are some other well-known commercial antivirus apps that I would avoid like the plague, as they are more apt to cause problems than provide protection. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Popularity vs. Risk MITBeta on 04/13/2007 at 9:04 AM
Posts: 24 Avg Rating:	The argument has been made many times over that there are few viruses for Macs because they make up such a relatively small number of computers. If this is true, then how do you explain why there are so few viruses for Linux? Yes, Linux is still a small player when it comes to desktop computing, but two-thirds of all internet servers are running on Linux. Surely if virus writers were looking to take down the majority they would go after these Linux servers. And yet they don't. I think the right answers is the Linux, BSD, and therefore Mac are superior operating systems that are not impossible to write viruses for, but certainly the difficulty of doing so is greater, and conversely the severity of damage that can be done by any such virus is significantly less. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Mac viruses gjcoram on 04/13/2007 at 3:44 PM
Posts: 6 Avg Rating:	When I was in college at Rice, it seemed like every time I put my floppy into a Mac in the computer center the virus scanner would find a new virus -- contracted the last time I had been in the computer center, since those were the only Macs I used. It has been a few years since then, and MacOS X is a different beast than the OS back then, so maybe it is harder to write a Mac virus now (and maybe easier to write a Windows virus ...). But it sure seems that the prevalence of viruses is directly proportional to the popularity of the OS. The comments about Linux servers miss the point, I think; the servers themselves aren't going out and visiting web sites and downloading questionable content, and they aren't receiving virus-laden messages from friends' compromised Exchange e-mail clients. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: Mac viruses MITBeta on 04/13/2007 at 5:09 PM
Posts: 24 Avg Rating:	Are you trying to suggest that internet servers are somehow not vulnerable to viruses that are transmitted via internet traffic? Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: Mac viruses gabrielg01 on 04/14/2007 at 11:32 AM
Posts: 317 Avg Rating:	Servers don't open attachments, so they don't get infected. Besides, a true comparison would involve the Windows based servers, not the Windows end users. So that is the question: are Linux based servers safer than Windows based severs? Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: Mac viruses MITBeta on 04/17/2007 at 9:22 AM
Posts: 24 Avg Rating:	Yes, they are: Myth: There's Safety In Small Numbers http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_linux/#myth1 Rate this comment: (Reply)

	antivirus mightybob on 04/14/2007 at 6:07 PM
Posts: 9 Avg Rating:	I have been running my windows xp machine without an anti virus. I do however run 2 spyware scanning programs and a firewall. Its pretty hard to get infected with a virus if you know what your doing. Infact ive been running the machine for 2+ years and it still runs like the day i got it. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: antivirus wbdeville on 04/14/2007 at 7:41 PM
Posts: 10 Avg Rating:	I've read (often and from many sources) that the average Windows machine can be infected by viruses, worms, trojans, adware and spyware within a few minutes of first being hooked to the Internet. That happens, usually, on the first day of use. :-) Millions of such machines are captives of spammers for proliferation of spam, for example. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: antivirus mightybob on 04/15/2007 at 5:50 PM
Posts: 9 Avg Rating:	these machines are only infected if thay do not have a firewall, or if the user downloads another program with the spyware attatched to it.firewalls and antivirus software unfortunatly do not protect the user from them self. also most users are foolish enough to allways run the computer on the administrator account. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: antivirus brunascle on 04/17/2007 at 11:40 AM		TR Staff Web Developer
Posts: 73 Avg Rating:	yes, but that first few minutes is usually after a fresh install. and if it's a regular copy of XP, you wont have firewall or antivirus software available. even a security-conscious user, who goes straight to download SP2 right after connecting, will be vunerable for a few minutes. Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Re: antivirus Gurthang on 04/16/2007 at 1:05 PM
Posts: 13 Avg Rating:	Agreed, I do something similar. The least secure part of any modern OS is quite frankly the user. Antivirus software is quite frequently the source of more problems than it ever solves. But like insurance it it sells itself through FUD. Most attacks on Windows systems come from web browsing and e-mail and require some action on the user's part. The remainder can be blocked via a good NAT+Firewall found in most consumer routers. I will agree that the other source of crapettes is the companies that sell things for Windows systems and those who build Windows systems. Just look at all the crap applets in the system tray that load in to an average Windows laptop in CompUSA. It is like these vendors don't care how the OS actually runs so long as they can shove more advertizing and bundleing into the machine. As to the Linux OS and Apple OS being more secure by design, maybe but you must remember that the numbers of actual non-techie users running these OSes is fairly low and they do not provide as consistant attack surface as Windows does. Look at all the changes that happened in Apple's OS and hardware from 2000 to today and think how many the interfaces have radically changed. The Linux population has another form of protection, for the most part Linux systems are servers setup and maintained by techies behind proper firewalls and maintained networks. Also think about how much Linux has changed since 2000 and how many interesting flavors of it have evolved. In essessance I bet even if a critical remote execution flaw was found in the core of Linux I doubt you could get it to take on anything even close to 20% of the running linux systems connected to the internet. So the question is as these alternative OSes grow at what point will they become "economicly viable" for attacks or have they learned from Window's bad example? Rate this comment: (Reply)

	Mac security gabrielg01 on 04/21/2007 at 2:49 AM
Posts: 317 Avg Rating:	Perhaps you'd like to read this article about Mac security: http://news.com.com/MacBook+hacked+in+contest+at+security+event/2100-7349_3-6178131.html?tag=cnetfd.mt Rate this comment: (Reply)