PRESS RELEASE: McAfee, Inc., the global leader in Intrusion Prevention and Security Risk Management, today announced anti-virus support for Intel-based Apple computers. McAfee VirusScan for Mactel 8.0 runs under Apple’s Rosetta emulator to help protect Apple computer users from Macintosh and Windows-based viruses, Trojans and other malicious threats.
According to McAfee Avert Labs, Macintosh platform vulnerabilities have increased more than 228 percent since 2003 due to the rising popularity of Apple’s consumer products, notably the iPod media devices and iTunes media services. While the Mac OS X operating system still remains safer than Windows-based platforms, the rapid growth in critical vulnerabilities has forged the need for a more proactive approach to keep systems secure, especially in heterogeneous work environments. McAfee VirusScan for Mactel is designed to detect, block and clean infected emails and attachments, keeping systems free from these threats.
“The availability of Mac exploit code on the Internet makes it an open target for the same types of malware currently plaguing the Windows world,” said Eric Winsborrow, vice president of product marketing, McAfee, Inc. “As more companies deploy Mac systems running on the Intel platform in mixed environments, the risk of infection will most likely increase. With McAfee VirusScan for Mactel, administrators can deploy systems on the new Mac Intel platform with the assurance that they are steps ahead of future security threats.”
McAfee VirusScan for Mactel utilizes the award-winning McAfee scan engine for complete, on-access 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 3.5 and 3.6 (ePO), enabling businesses to manage all of their McAfee security solutions from one central interface, which helps them save time and money, as well as ensure a consistent security policy across all computers.
McAfee VirusScan for Mactel is now available worldwide through McAfee, Inc. and its channel partners. For more information please visit http://www.mcafee.com
MacDailyNews Take: If you visit mcafee.com to buy Mac OS X virus protection after reading this press release, please also visit brooklynbridgeforsale.com and primefloridaswampland.com. For Jobs’ sake, how the heck can they sell a PowerPC application running under Rosetta emulation as supporting Intel-based Macs with a straight face? Do you like being sold something via fear tactics and nonsense sentences? If you want to be a good “network citizen” and keep Windows viruses off your Mac, so they don’t spread to Windows PCs, that’s one thing. Otherwise, you are wasting your money (please see related articles below).
What our own SteveJack wrote back in March works well today, “People are switching to Mac from Windows. Apple’s Mac market share increased over a percentage point in the last year alone, according to Gartner and IDC. That is why Mac OS X’s security is being attacked in dubious articles (weakly, but attacked nonetheless). In fact, over a year ago, I warned about Mac backlash from those interested in protecting their Windows turf. Such backlash will get worse before it gets better. These people and companies aren’t about to let facts get in the way of continuing to fill their pockets with Windows-related profits. Ultimately, these articles mean good things for Apple. It shows that the Mac is gaining and it’s making a lot of people who depend on keeping the masses stuck on Windows very, very nervous.”
For those interested, more crap from McAfee via TechWeb can be found here.
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Related articles:
BusinessWeek: New Apple Mac ads stir up Mac security overreaction – May 04, 2006
Unix expert: Mac OS X much more secure than Windows; recent Mac OS X security stories are media hype – May 03, 2006
Macs and viruses: the true story – May 02, 2006
Anti-Mac FUD machine shifts into overdrive – May 01, 2006
FUD Alert: Viruses don’t catch up to the Mac – May 01, 2006
BusinessWeek: Apple should hire security czar to combat uninformed media FUD – March 09, 2006
Spate of recent Mac security stories signal that Microsoft, others getting nervous – March 06, 2006
Hey, bub. That’s a nice computer you got there. It’d be a shame if it got… infected.
That’s fscking pathetic. From that logic Photoshop is for MacTel seeing as it runs under Rosetta.
Brilliant response, Rocco!
whats a virus?
Free ClamXav
It’s free, it works, and it’s priced right when you consider the number of virus threats to Mac OS X at the moment. PAYING for Norton’s or McAfee at the moment is the height of stupidity, in my opinion.
McFee (yes, I meant to spell it that way) has apparently discovered that percentages are WAY more scary than actual numbers…
this is the best site on the net
OK, OK … the software is more of the same ol’, same ol’.
Now let’s all take a deep breath and look at the rest of it. This statement in particular:
“As more companies deploy Mac systems running on the Intel platform in mixed environments, the risk of infection will most likely increase. With McAfee VirusScan for Mactel, administrators can deploy systems on the new Mac Intel platform with the assurance that they are steps ahead of future security threats.”
Now … even if it IS the same ol’, same ol’, it becomes important. Macs get “infected” all the time, and in a mixed-platform environment that can be deadly – like Typhoid Mary. The infected Mac never sees any problem and is never “sick”, but it can pass that infection along to the PCs around it and bring them to their knees. Sure … the virus the Mac catches will not be “SELF-replicating”, but that won’t keep employee M from forwarding it to employee P who will the suffer for it.
McAfee isn’t selling the AV to protect the Mac – not really – but to protect the PCs around it.
DL,
“The infected Mac never sees any problem and is never “sick”, but it can pass that infection along to the PCs around it and bring them to their knees”
Ummmm, how would that happen exactly?
“…employee M from forwarding it to employee P…”
Oh. So I should probably stop forwarding OBVIOUSLY JUNK/INFECTED EMAILS TO THE POOR SODS USING DOZE ON MY NETWORK?!?!?!?!
ok.
DLMeyer, you’re missing the point. The press release highlights the protection for Intel Macs, yet it must be run in emulation. In short, they have not updated the software at all.
I think you also missed the post about the free ClamX AV, sufficient to protect the Windows boxes around you.
This announcement makes me think we should all also get vaccinated against Ebola Fever when the cure is perfected, just to be on the safe side.
There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
They are saying ‘vulnerablilities’ have gone up but they havent said anything about actual real live exploits, to which there aren’t any.
First … get over the BrokeMac Mountain thing … at least in public.
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I would hope that you would not forward obviously infected emails to anyone – you obviously feel strongly about this as well. But, a scenario for your consideration:
You get a perfectly legitimate business-related email from the marketer at Amazing Routers you met at LinuxWorld. Nice guy, knows his product, but you don’t make purchasing decisions on routers so you forward the email to your CTO. Your CTO’s PC becomes infected because the marketer, nice guy that he is, wasn’t running an AV and is sending out virus-infected emails daily.
Now … aren’t you glad you asked?
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To buy or download McAfee’s software you need to use…. Internet Explorer. Now I feel safe.
Lets see
228% * 0 = 0
they are right? Please write them and let their marketing department know that they should choose a more scary number.
might I suggest 1,000,000%, surly that would scare more people into buying macs and 1000000% * 0 = 0 so they are still in the safe zone.
The reality is that a program that waist CPU cycles, consumes Disk space, prevents some of your emails from getting through, removes your access to files that are harmless and installs OS level hacks could rightfully be called a virus or at least a Trojan horse.
So Apple has 3 viruses:
MacAfee
Norton’s Anti virus
Virex
It looks like we finally have real viruses on the mac
Sorry for the typo
buying macs should be buying mac anti-virus software
“The infected Mac never sees any problem and is never “sick”, but it can pass that infection along to the PCs around it and bring them to their knees”
I fail to see the problem.
BIRD FLU…OMFG IT’S LIKE BIRD FLU!!!!
I think I’ll pass on the hysteria marketing for bloatware.
Metryq said:
DLMeyer, you’re missing the point. The press release highlights the protection for Intel Macs, yet it must be run in emulation. In short, they have not updated the software at all. I think you also missed the post about the free ClamX AV, sufficient to protect the Windows boxes around you.
Re: your first point … I didn’t miss it – what do you think “same ol’, same ol'” referred to? “Same old stuff/story”. They only put the reference to “Intel-based Apple computers” in to make it look like they’ve done something new. Did you even note the silly “Macintosh platform vulnerabilities have increased more than 228 percent since 2003 due to the rising popularity of Apple’s consumer products, notably the iPod media devices and iTunes media services.” reference? Like … an iPod can catch a virus (other than DRM/CRAP) or iTunes can activate one – well, maybe it can?
Re: your second point … I didn’t miss it. I type slowly and it wasn’t there when I started my post. I’m going to look into it, it sounds like a good solution. BTW: my wife has passed along malware that came to her in an email from another playwright – so I know that scenario well.
Gonna open my copy of Flash. Gonna create a SWF file that looks like an application. Gonna set it up so that it opens to play an interactive animation that looks like an OS X system scanner – real purdy graphics mind. Gonna include a clickable scan button that plays scan animation. Gonna set a variable in the script that throws up a random box saying “virus detected and removed”. Gonna sell it to ‘fraidy cats who don’t know better.
Gonna make a fortune!
DLMeyer:
While that is possible, another important reality-check is that an email cannot be “infected.”
An attachment on that e-mail can be infected, but the PC user is the one that should have the virus protection. If he doesn’t, then the little email he gets from you is the least of his concerns.
They wanted to be first out of the gate with “NEW, IMPROVED!” AV option so they could tout to the world they’re on the cutting edge.
I’m betting many folks will wait for a UB version of an AV that will operate within the virtualization realm and attempt to protect both the Apple & PC side of things – but that means we probably won’t see anything like that until Apple releases Leopard.
DLMeyer,
If your CTO gets a virus from an email you forward to him you had better fire the sonofabitch because he is incompetent. The stupid bastard isn’t even protecting his own PC.
“McAfee isn’t selling the AV to protect the Mac – not really – but to protect the PCs around it.”
That’s a good point. If this is the case, then Windows users should pay for Mac Anti-Virus software in order to protect THEIR Windows machines.
Be a Good Mac using Netizen, use FREE ClamXav to clean Windows viruse/worm/trojan infected files sent to you by infested Windows machines, so you can protect other infested Windows machines. Seems like a fair price to pay.
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Jim,
if there is a bit of malware contained within an email, it is “infected”.
If the malware is in the attachment, both are “infected”.
If your computer is immune to the infection, your system is still “infected” as long as the malware sits on your HD.
Yeah … the guy with the PC is responsible for protecting it. You are responsible only for making a
good-faith effort to be a good corporate citizen. See my earlier post about the CTO: if he finds out it was you
who passed this infection along, what’s going to happen to your job? If you made that good-faith effort, you
might still be employed. Also: once a Mac has passed a virus to a sensitive but unprotected PC in your company
it will be harder to get IT to let others in the company get Macs as they are “security risks”.