Apple’s support page, “Mac OS: Antivirus utilities,” that the company originally published in June 2007 and updated with new versions of mentioned antivirus apps on November 21 2008, which, for some reason — incompetence, ignorance, or both — generated widespread coverage from axe-grinders worldwide has disappeared.
“‘We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate,’ Apple spokesman Bill Evans, told Macworld. ‘The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box.'”
MacDailyNews Note: Neither of the original nor the updated KnowledgeBase articles (which we reprinted verbatim here) mentioned “Mac OS X.” They both stated, curiously, simply “Mac OS,” a fact we also mentioned in our article yesterday.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple couldn’t have planned a better way to call attention to the Mac’s vastly superior security (and maybe they did). Expect massive handwringing from the Windows sufferers who think everybody, even Mac users, should be wasting their processor cycles so that those suffering with Windows can be “protected” as they continue to torture themselves with bloated, insecure, upside-down and backwards, badly-faked Macs in order to delude themselves with visions of some great “deal” they got upfront.
As we said yesterday, “We’re keeping our processor cycles to ourselves. As evidenced by our ongoing poll — ‘Do you run antivirus app(s) on your Mac?’ — we’re not alone, with 91% answering ‘no.'”
Cancel or Allow?
By the way, in anticipation of the appearance of the old canard that the Mac is secure via obscurity: that’s an illogical myth. Why, if obscurity means security, in April 2007 was there a virus for iPods running Linux (a few hundred devices total, at most, in all the world), but there are no viruses for the over 30 million Mac OS X computers that are currently online? Why would criminals not target the most affluent personal computer users, the tens of millions of Mac users around the world?
Uh, oh – logic is certainly not what AV software peddlers, Windows PC box assemblers, and the rest of the leeches affixed to the Windows ecosystem want people to hear. Fear is what they’re after. The sheep must be kept in the Windows pen, no matter the cost to reputations, reality, productivity, sanity, etc. Far too many have far too much invested in Microsoft Windows for them to stand idly by and let it all slip away due to a vastly superior, vastly more secure solution from Apple. But slip away it does nonetheless.
The idea that Windows’ morass of security woes exists because more people use Windows and that Macs have no security problems because fewer people use Macs, is simply not true. By design, Mac OS X is simply more secure than Windows. Period. For reference and reasons why Mac OS X is more secure than Windows, read The New York Times’ David Pogue’s mea culpa on the subject of the “Mac Security Via Obscurity” myth here.
“Security via Obscurity” is a defense mechanism for the delusional and also tool for Microsoft apologists and/or those who profit from Windows; to be used when attempting keep the sheep in the pen. 30 million Mac OS X installs is not “obscure” at all, but over seven (7+) years of Mac users surfing the Net unimpeded certainly is “secure.” Besides social engineering scams (phishing, trojans; no OS can instill common sense) the only thing by which Mac users are really affected are large swaths of compromised Windows machines slowing down the ‘Net with spam and nefarious botnet traffic targeted at exploiting even more insecure Windows boxes. Get a Mac.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
No AV software since I installed OSX beta.
Even back in the day when I was beta testing for aol in the uk I never used anti virus and never needed to that going back to system 8/9 so no worries for me
I dont run AV on my Windows/boot camp partition, however i dont browse the web with it, and i dont do anything but play games on it.
As long as I remember my system password I will never need AV software. If my iMac ever gets infected it’s my fault, not Apple’s, Mac OS X or anyone else’s, just mine.
The fallacy of the “market share” lie.
When you hear a ‘Dozer spreading the “no virus ‘cos of market share” myth, consider that this is what they want you to believe- That there are only a few hundred (perhaps even a few thousand) computers on Planet Earth, and it’s simply not profitable for an author of malware to code for 20 or 30 Macs.
Reality, however, looks more like this;
Apple is selling more than 2 million computers per quarter.
There are roughly 25 million Macintosh’s in use in the US alone, and what data I’ve found available suggests that, on average, Mac users earn more money than their ‘Doze counterparts.
If you’re coding malware, you’re a dunce if you haven’t attempted to target 25 million upper income computer owners, and I refuse to believe (like so many vocal ‘Doze fanbois do) that these people are stupid.
The whole “news” reporting industry should hang its head in shame over this little episode…
Echo…echo….echo….echooo…
Security? There’s more stuff Apple could do at a system level. E.g. Leopard’s randomization is incomplete; e.g., there are some funky permissions on some directories (mainly for ease of use – that old trade-off).
But AV software is a silly security solution that palpably *hasn’t* worked on Windows. It’s a band-aid solution. It’s no solution.
I’m not about to fill the coffers of the likes of Symantec — with a top-up each and every year for the pleasure of continuing to f*** my Mac’s performance and stability.
No thank you, Sir.
I’m just waiting for the MacGenius take…
EFI, tin foil hats blah blah blah
If it was possible to write viruses for the Mac, the windoze fanboys would have gotten a hold of a pirated copies of OS X and written some by now. That’s what I tell my windoze friends and they have nothing to say afterwards.
Even if there was a real Mac virus it wouldn’t get very far without something similar to the Active X “feature” of Windoze to auto spread it to everyone in your Outlook directory..
My main reason for switching to the Mac was the fact that I was spending more time maintaining my computer than I was using it. Prior to switching- I would ask people with Macs about their system setup- I got a lot of… “I don’t know- I just use it” at first I thought it was ignorance- and then I realized- that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And yes- it just works. I maintain PC’s for a living. The battle is constant- Virus definition updates, OS updates and patches, spyware scans, “my computer is slow” issues, etc.- and then- I come home to the sanctity of my Mac environnment…
Anyway- I don’t and won’t run any memory resident virus / spyware services on my Macs- once in a while- I’ll run a free scan utility just to check- but it’s not memory resident and the only time I’ve found anything- it was Windows related – (.exe, .vbs, .dll)
Cheers everybody.
damn near got into a fight over this on Slashdot, I’ll repeat what I said there:
“
Market share isn’t the reason there isn’t a virus for OS X, I mean, come on now, there’s a virus for linux on iPod! A virus that depends on hacked hardware that only a few thousand people are doing! How does ‘market share’ handle that one?
The biggest reason there isn’t a virus for OS X is that it’s so difficult, as the parent mentioned, to get anywhere. The only things out there for OS X are things that rely on the user’s stupidity (which is potentially unlimited) to install and infect, but that isn’t a virus, it’s a trojan, or spyware, or something like that.
Market share will never come into the equation, it will always be the ease of making the virus. If by some chance windows overnight became as secure as OS X, then we will see viruses for OS X, then when the security is equally difficult we will see market share being the reason for the number of viruses on a system. But we’re talking about Windows becoming secure and well-coded to prevent hacking, that’ll never happen, so Market Share will never become a factor.
Until the point where windows is as secure as OS X (or hell freezes over, whichever comes first), OS X will always have few, if any, viruses, even if it becomes the market leader.”
AWESOME. Now someone please go and tell that piece of crap news source – the BBC – to stop rehashing old articles as flamebait to get hits on their crapy news site.
With 25 to 30 million OSX installations in the US, you would think that some virus writers would want to target that system. They would look at that and say, “Man, 30 million computers out there and hardly a one is running any AV protection at all. What a botnet that would make! And no AV! This is going to be easy!”
So why hasn’t it happened? (*I* know the answer, but many don’t.)
The guys writing the viruses are using Macs. That is the answer. We all know it. Why would you write a virus for your own computer? That is stupid.
Now, for the losers that are still using PC. GET A MAC LOSERS!!!
Even Paul Thurrott says,
“Also, I would say that while I don’t use OS X regularly anymore (who would with Windows Vista and 7 around?), I would never install AV on that system, ever. And that’s true even if I were using it 24/7. It may not last, but for now at least, Mac users don’t need AV. That’s the simple truth.”
He’s welcome to stick with WIndows 7 and Vista, poor soul, but has the integrity to call it like it is on OS X.
One thing is for sure, Apple cannot allow viruses and malware to infiltrate the Mac. Hopefully it can be credited to Apple’s code, and not the apathy of the attackers.
But what if? If there is no Mac anti-virus software already in place, and a real attack happens, that will really suck. Apple should secretly subsidize some of the anti-virus apps to have something in place in case the unthinkable does happen.
I hope nothing happens, and Apple is just that good at stopping this kind of stuff.
You need a nice long password with letters and numbers and dont blindly install some crap off the net that asks for said password.
Here are some good passwords to use:
jak75adk
kadjha9
222nd98wn
098andf44n4
Oh.
Well you cant use those now because everyone can see them.
So dont tell anyone your password or even write it down anywhere.
If you forget it, just buy a new computer.
Yeah, thats it, buy a new computer.
OK.
We deal with two virus issues in our 300 Mac setting. The most prominent is that of forwarding an email attachment that contains a virus that came from someone else. While our macs are unaffected, the recipients complain that we sent them a virus. Macs can be a carrier in that sense. We deal with our own domain at the mail source, but users are allowed to access their own POP accounts and we have no source control over those. The other issue is that of old documents contaminated with minor virus’ stored on individual machines and file shares. These documents are usually older forms in .doc format that an employee will occasionally find, use, and forward. We’ve been on a campaign to seek and destroy these old files, but they still crop up about once a year. No real harm, but they do set off virus alarms on receiving Windows boxes which doesn’t look good for us.
When you ask, “do you run antivirus software?” do you mean in the background, like they do on a Pissy, or do you mean having an app like Clamxav, which you keep for those rare instances you feel like fiddling around with your Mac.
The Concern Troll Mom BlueRay opines….
“But what if? If there is no Mac anti-virus software already in place, and a real attack happens, that will really suck. “
No, it won’t, because it will take more than long enough to infect more than a handful of Macs to ramp up protection.
This is where market share comes into play. This virus will not work on 90% of the computers it tries to infect.
This is why a healthy ecosystem of DIFFERENT OS’es is a very valuable thing. A market consisting of 33% Windows 33% Mac and 33% Linux would be a very hard one for any virus to attack…it would either have to attack all of them, or attack through a commonality they all share.
Out of hundreds of Macs here since the 1980’s we had 1 Worm on OS9, and it came in on a disk from an outside source.
But that’s it. Nothing in OSX since it came out. Been fun watching the Winduhz users around us go crazy. We try not to chuckle too loud, pisses them off.
I work as a management consultant and am constantly exchanging files with clients e.g spreadsheets, presentations, word docs etc. 99% of these originate on some flavour of Windows – so I can’t assume that they are virus-free. I use ClamXav in Sentry mode to scan files received by email or on a flash drive. It’s unobtrusive, quick and FREE
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Partly it’s just good sense, and partly it’s so nobody blames me and my Macbook Pro for spreading a virus!
The whole point of Apple having that statement was for CYA. If ever something did happen, they could point to that article and tell the class action boys, “See, we warned you way back when.”
Like was posted above, Macs can be a vector for an infected file that you may forward to someone not running OS X and running the OS targeted by the virus. It’s about being a good citizen on the networks we are connected to and the people we interact with on the net.
With all of the the 3rd party add ons and such, Mac users do have vulnerabilities and one day they will get bitten. My take is that the community will get hit hard and it will be ugly. Most LINUX/ Windows users will have not one iota of sympathy because of the smugness and arrogance many have taken toward security.
Finally, most businesses and organization IT departments require all users to have some form of AV software installed on any computer attached to their network. Failure to do so put you in violation of their user agreement or standard and could make you liable if you Mac passes along an infected file or malware on their
network- behind their firewall and other security setups.