McAfee, Inc. today announced that McAfee Virex for Macintosh now offers support for the Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) operating system. With extended support for Apple’s newest Mac OS X, small to large businesses can implement real-time prevention of viruses, worms, Trojans and other potentially unwanted programs across their Macintosh and heterogeneous environments.
McAfee Virex utilizes the award-winning McAfee scan engine for complete, proactive virus protection for Macintosh systems, stopping virus and malicious code threats, including hidden threats buried in archives and other compressed file types. The solution is centrally managed by McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator, enabling businesses to manage all of their McAfee system security solutions from one central interface, to save time and money as well as ensure a consistent security policy across all computers.
According to a recent Inside Gartner Top View Report by Ed Younker, Gartner Research, enterprise users should not assume that their Macs are immune to security flaws. Even though the growing number of Macintosh security flaws won’t affect most enterprises, businesses using Macs must guard against malicious code attacks.
“Although the Macintosh installed base is relatively small, it is still be a potential target for hackers, especially Macintosh systems that are connected to the corporate network,” said Steve Crutchfield, director of product marketing, McAfee, Inc. in the press release. “With added support for Tiger OS, administrators using McAfee Virex can upgrade to the new platform with the assurance that they are steps ahead of future security threats.”
McAfee Virex is available August 29, 2005 worldwide through McAfee, Inc. and its channel partners.
More information here.
MacDailyNews Take: In somewhat related news today, Trek announced training wheels for Lance Armstrong, Snapple announced a new iced tea for goldfish, and Caswell-Massey announced a beautiful mock tortoise hair comb for Steve Ballmer.
Seriously, although Mac OS X users are immune to Windows viruses and there have been zero Mac OS X viruses since the Apple’s operating system’s debut, Mac users who do not wish to pass along Windows viruses and malware to Windows users should consider running run anti-virus software. For example, this would theoretically help a Mac user to avoid forwarding an infected email to a Windows user. As you can see below, Windows users need all the help they can get.
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this will be included in .Mac again now.
Yeah, it’s pretty useless, but might be handy someday in the future.
and another repeat…. and another endless number of links that no one will care to open or read. Good useless job MDN.
“…….Windows users need all the help they can get…..”
Who cares ??….. Let ’em suffer with their virus-magnet OS !
Eventually, the smart ones will get a clue and move over to Macs … and the rest ?? ….. Well, you cant teach an old dog new tricks, I suppose..
Lance Armstrong needing training wheels………HAHAHA!
“The List,” as I call it, of related MDN articles regarding Windows worm, virus, spyware, and malware problems and the Mac’s immunity is important for all to see.
Keep up the great work, MDN!
“A beautiful mock tortoise hair comb for Steve Ballmer.”
ROTFLMFAO!
I heard the G4 was too slow to run PC viruses, which is why there aren’t any. Perhaps it’d work if they Altivec-enabled them. I guess viruses might become an issue when Mac moves to Intel.
RE: Paul
You “heard” G4 was too slow to run viruses? Dude, you just gave yourself away as knowing nothing about Macs. Go somewhere else.
Well, the ePolicy Orchestrator support removes one more excuse for IT people to ban Macs from their network.
Gotta get in on this OS X anti-virus software racket.
Let’s see, development costs for software that doesn’t acutally do anything…close to 0.
Revenue: Fool some newbie switcher suckers into buying it…Bucks
Return on investment: In percentage terms…nearly infinite.
Ka-ching!
We get so tired of geeks (without a life) that dis MDN’s coverage. There are some of us that don’t catch an item the minute (or maybe even the first time) it comes out. We’re not clicking the MDN bookmark thousands of times a day in hopes of being able to type “first post”. Talk about no life!
We understand the fact that there can be slow news days in the Mac world. We appreciate that info we may have missed, or misplaced (even though it is old) is posted again. We understand that there are newbies to the site that may be seeing something for the first time. We fully appreciate the job that MDN does. It’s our favorite Mac News site.
We wish the whiners and “first posters” would find something productive to do with their Macs all day.
Paul, I think you’re right. The Intel move will be worth it though, since we will be able to run any Windows application in OS X now, since they will be using the same CPU.
Oh, Paul, you’re in a heap ‘o trouble now – using “slow” in reference to a G4 and, even worse, implying that Apple’s switch to the Intel chip will somehow magically cause OS X to become more vulnerable to viruses and worms and other similarly named creepy-crawly nasties. Just wondering if you actually KNOW how that will work? If you do, you could make a bundle selling it to Apple, or just create your own anti-virus program to protect us unsuspecting Mac users from certain DOOM.
Good luck with that. But don’t quit your day job.
In a world where people use different OS’s its good to be able to stop the spread of infected files, even if it has no effect on our Mighty Macs.
Although it seems there are less file infections and more port crawling worms doing the damage nowadays.
We should probably stop using Macs entirely, since they could potentially spread Windows viruses. Mac users hate their freedom.
Sorry, Nick, but I find it hard to understand just how viruses and worms designed for the WinXP architecture will somehow be able to instantaneously mutate and become a threat to OS X programs and system files once Apple switches to the Intel chip. Can you elaborate?
I suspect not, but give it a shot and we’ll see how it goes. (See my earlier post about day jobs, though…)
These virus “protection” software companies must be fasting and praying for the day that someone is able to create a live virus for MAC OS X.
But since there literally are no Mac OS X virus, these peddlers must resort to the obvious Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) dribble. Given the tactics employed here by McAfee and also by Symantec, I would never purchase a single sticking piece of code from either one of these slime balls.
And as for being a carrier of M$ Winblows viruses, if someone wants to use that shit operating system f*ck ’em.
Ah, Rock on Steve!
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This just keeps getting funnier. The retardo-meter is about to bust under all the pressure.
“……Given the tactics employed here by McAfee and also by Symantec, I would never purchase a single sticking piece of code from either one of these slime balls…..”
True enuff, MacMania …
Back in the day when there were a few viruses affecting ..
there were always a slew of free virus scanners available, and theres no reason to think that… should the need ever arise again… that these solutions wouldnt be available again …
“Disinfectant” comes to mind… and still can be downloaded ..over here.. along with most of the other freebies as well…
Of course, you will need Classic to run any of them… even just for laffs !
“I wonder if”:
As long as you pay me $10 per month, I will personally guarantee that your Mac will not get any viruses.
This offer goes to any of youse guys.
McAfee must be close to releasing their first virus for OS X if the virus check application is now available.
Be a good net citizen, viruses or not, install this, and stop being a carrier, even if you can’t be infected yourself.
http://www.clamxav.com/
Ever since McAfee made the anti-virus part of the OS it has been nothing but trouble.
A lot of security problems have been found in security companies software. All combined they total as much as M$ security issues.
I have a old copy of the standalone version of McAfee which still downloads the virus definitions which is much safer as its not running all of the time.
I also have ClamX, running both never finds anything anyway as I completely alienate every PC user I know.
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Screw them and their crappy platform.
I wash my hands 8 times after going to the bathroom. Better safe than sorry.
Elmer F.U.D. says:
That wascally wabbit is vewwy vewwwy dangewous! Don’t go into the Wowld Wide Woods without pwotection! Take youw twusty McAfee two bawwel shotgun, just in case!
Someday a mac virus will appear for real. Hopefully not until we all get virus protection – well at least those who have .mac.
Assuming that a virus is never going to appear for OS X is dangerous. Compared to Windows most people agree the OS X is more secure by default. Also Apple appear to be good at closing the holes rather quickly. However, sooner or later something could slip through. In that situation virus protection software would be very important.