There have been viruses for macs for years, even Mac OS X. You just don't hear much about them. Anyone running a large number of macs, like we do at work, usually has antivirus. I used to get it at home with the .Mac account, but they dicontinued it a couple years ago. We run Norton at work.

The reason why Mac viruses tend not to spread as fast as Windows is because the vast majority of computer users are using Windows. So when you start a virus, when it spreads to everyone in an address book chances are 8/10 of those people the virus is sent to are other windows users.

Conversely on the Mac side of things, if the virus was sent out, most likely 8/10 users it was sent to would be windows users that wouldn't be affected. Now I say that just based on the fact that 80%+ of the worlds computer has windows of some type installed upon it.

The one thing that tends to skew things a bit is that Mac users tend to interact with more mac users on a regular basis. If your a Mac user, chances are 6/10 people on your address list are using macs. Yeah, it's kina weird like that with the whole cult of mac. (which a social impact study should be made sometime about Mac users. so any socialolgy grad students out there, get an iBook and then goto coffee shops and see how other Mac users will come up and just give you the "what's up?" nod and act like they;ve known you for a decade.)

Like any virus, real or computer, it spreads only if there are enough hosts to continue to propagate it. With windows, there are just so many more units and most of them not updated with security or AV software on a regular basis that they thrive. Although even this is not as bad as it once was as consumers and corporate IT people have become aware and started to take more precautions against it.

The fact of the matter is: there are just fewer Macs and I think security through obsecurity is a big part of it. If Apple continues to gain market share, then it may become a bigger issue.

Still the facts remain that Unix as an architecture is more virus resistant, but like any computer OS, it is not virus nor hack proof. OpenBSD isn't even hack proof...

That's my thoughts on the subject.

The best solution to this problem is to use the UNIX security feature, that user accounts can't write outside of the /home directory. The most damage it can do is the home directory.

xboxrulz

The article that I just read (it was referenced in this thread) states that you muct download a 2314MB file named latestpics from somebody on iChat. If you download a huge file like that from somebody you don't know, you deserve to have your computer taken away. Notice the threat level was low, because not alot of people are stupid enough to do this. This just defies common sense.

xboxrulz- you stated suing a security feature to prevent writing outside of the /home dir.
Could you give details on this? I'm a new mac owner (2 months) and think that is a great idea.
Thanks for the info.

Create two accounts: one that has administraive privlages, another that is just a basic users account. Then always log in as the user account unless you need to install updates or a new program.

By default, user accounts can read files from other accounts, but cannot write to them.

OS-X and Unix in general has a better security model than Windows. If you've got a Unix based system set up correctly, the user doesn't have the priveleges to do anything really harmful. On Windows its not the same, and they would have to do a major rewrite to fix the problems. Of course, this sort of thing won't stop you sending out a million bogus emails, but at least your system is safe.

And of course the other thing is that a larger number of people use Windows, which makes it the obvious target (for someone who wants to get a lot of attention).

Nobody ever said that Apples were not vulnerable to attack, but for these two reasons, Mac users are in a much better position when it comes to viruses and worms.

Source: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?N...age=1&pagePos=2

Not a virus per say but I figured I would throw it up since it relates to OSX security. Seems like something they'll be able to fix fairly quickly although who really knows. Hopefully they clear this up quickly and don't find any more vulnerabilities (I don't like when people act like OSX is infallible, but I don't want to see it getting attacked. Anything like this is bad regardless of whichn platform its on :S)

YES! Now i could go "In yo face!!" at my cousin for saying there has been no known viruses for Macs at all. Still, it took a fairly long time for some hacker to have bothered to make a virus for the Mac. I don't see how it can be any more difficult than creating a virus for Windows. OSs are OSs, you can never change them. Its popularity that "gives" them the viruses.

I've heard in BBC lately that Apple computers had a bug that hackers could tap into and basically hack the Mac with it. Apple "believes" that there has been no viruses out there yet that target the bug and is working on fixing it. I wonder what more problems would arise with the Mac...

Like with any operating system, the more people use it the more security flaws/holes will be found. Yes the MacOS is more secure then the Windows operating system but there are 2 main reasons for this that I can see:

1) Windows is written to be used by the general public, and has always been written so all you really have to know to use is is basic typing and knowing how to turn the box on.

2) Home users don't want to have to remember alot of passwords or have the kids come and say "mom I want this game installed" after a long day at the office.

Believe it or not I have more computers come across my tech bench due to the fact that the parents don't want to have to install software for their kids and this leads to massive virus/worm/trojen/adware/malware infestations and they are willing to pay $80+ USD to have someone clean it out once every 6 months or so then to have security.

Windows based computers are designed for people that either don't know or don't want to know how to properly work with computers in a secure way and then complain about it to make themselves feel better. I know this isn't a popular point of view but after years of cleaning up systems for fun and for a living I have come to this unpopular opinion.

This post has been edited by Logan Deathbringer: Feb 24 2006, 10:11 PM

Even when Linux doesn't have any viruses, I still install an antivirus just in case.

xboxrulz