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I can probably find it - I remember it being on a techsupport forum I used to frequent and a mac tech said it.

Ovion wrote:I can probably find it - I remember it being on a techsupport forum I used to frequent and a mac tech said it.

That doesn't sound like a particularly great source.

Joey wrote:

Ovion wrote:As has been said, Apple Macs can and do get viruses.

What hasn't been said, is it is Apples official company mandate, as handed down to their staff and helpdesk / repair teams is this:

Macs don't get viruses.
If a user comes in claiming to have a virus, they don't.
If a Mac has a virus, you are not allowed to remove them, or do anything about them, because that would be admitting macs have viruses which they don't.

Got a source on that?

One of the daily emails I get from PCR mentioned that 6 - 12 months ago, so the story is out there.

...

PC computers that are smart and run anti-virus, don't click on every popup that appears, only install programs that they know are trustworthy, and don't allow random websites to run unknown scripts
Apple computers

You put these in the wrong order. There is no windows user that has never experienced a malware infection or virus. They don't exist. They are myths. There are millions of Mac users who haven't. Claim a fanboy bias or whathaveyou (I despised my macbook pro, it was like a tiny star) but there is no serious review of the safety of both operating systems that can claim similarities in quality of system security.

I got one last week at work and it still isn't cleared up. That's despite all the protections an international megacorp can out in place. It is a trojan.

Kilkrazy wrote:I got one last week at work and it still isn't cleared up. That's despite all the protections an international megacorp can out in place. It is a trojan.

What is your workstation?

Kilkrazy wrote:I got one last week at work and it still isn't cleared up. That's despite all the protections an international megacorp can out in place. It is a trojan.

So you got jimmied by a trojan at work. KK we never knew...

ShumaGorath wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I got one last week at work and it still isn't cleared up. That's despite all the protections an international megacorp can out in place. It is a trojan.

What is your workstation?

Some kind of Hewlett Packard running Win XP. It's got McAfee anti-virus on it, which stopped the infection, but the MIS department said they will need to replace the entire machine to eliminate it.

Kilkrazy wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I got one last week at work and it still isn't cleared up. That's despite all the protections an international megacorp can out in place. It is a trojan.

What is your workstation?

Some kind of Hewlett Packard running Win XP. It's got McAfee anti-virus on it, which stopped the infection, but the MIS department said they will need to replace the entire machine to eliminate it.

Probably not worth the cost to repair a 50 dollar desktop.

It's a few years old.

The Firewire 800 card can probably be transferred easily enough. The hard drives are pretty cheap these days.

It only has 3GB of RAM.

McAfee is crap. I hope your not paying for it

Of course not. I use Macintoshes at home.

I don't have an anti-virus or a firewall, haven't done since I last formatted (about 2 years ago). No viruses.
gak load of spyware though, thank god for spybot.

Joey wrote:I don't have an anti-virus or a firewall, haven't done since I last formatted (about 2 years ago). No viruses.
gak load of spyware though, thank god for spybot.

There is really very little difference between a virus and spyware. It's more categorical, they do the same thing in the same way. You probably have a few things that would classically be considered virus' if you have adware.

Surtur wrote:Well we aren't really talking about large company networks. Otherwise we'd probably talking about linux based farms vs Windows based farms. Given the marketshare of 10%, you're looking at 9 times the targets for Windows, but as I said, there is a significant lack of anti-virus for mac which should make it more vulnerable which would increase the odds of a successful attempt. Wouldn't you agree?

We are talking about large computer networks, because malware that targets Windows based home computers will also be able to access company networks, because no matter what the servers are run on, most PCs in that office are Windows based machines.

So building your malware to target Windows machines is simply a better option that one that targets just home computers.



Now, at the end of the day, for the home user, it doesn't really matter if Macs are less likely to get a virus because they're inherently more super awesome, or because people don't bother writing viruses because the user base is so much smaller. What matters ultimately is that your computer is less likely to get a virus.

OK, that 10 second hack sounds impressive, but come on! He researched and wrote it before showing it off? That's like saying you can wire a house in the time it takes to flip a light switch for the first time. The work was already done.

Ovion wrote:As has been said, Apple Macs can and do get viruses.

What hasn't been said, is it is Apples official company mandate, as handed down to their staff and helpdesk / repair teams is this:

Macs don't get viruses.
If a user comes in claiming to have a virus, they don't.
If a Mac has a virus, you are not allowed to remove them, or do anything about them, because that would be admitting macs have viruses which they don't.

Is Apple a scientology run corporation?

It's a hell of a lot easier if one has physical access to the Mac's in question and OSX installation disc.

Keychain? Oh no problem after I boot to disc and get access to all your stuff. I should probably add you can do this with Windows too, but it requires using a linux disc.

Any computer can be booted from a different source if you have physical access to the hardware.

If you've got access to the computer you can simply remove the hard drives and read them on a different machine.

(That's why when we decommission computers in my company the drives are removed, degaussed and physically crushed.)

That isn't really the danger we're talking about, though. The big problem is people doing stuff remotely.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't have an anti-virus or a firewall, haven't done since I last formatted (about 2 years ago). No viruses.
gak load of spyware though, thank god for spybot.

There is really very little difference between a virus and spyware. It's more categorical, they do the same thing in the same way. You probably have a few things that would classically be considered virus' if you have adware.

Well yeah, but it's like having symtomless chlymidia
Anyway anti-viruses are far more intrursive and annoying than any virus. When was the last time a virus stopped you playing a MP game?

Kilkrazy wrote:Any computer can be booted from a different source if you have physical access to the hardware.

If you've got access to the computer you can simply remove the hard drives and read them on a different machine.

(That's why when we decommission computers in my company the drives are removed, degaussed and physically crushed.)

That isn't really the danger we're talking about, though. The big problem is people doing stuff remotely.

I beat a hard drive with a hammer once. It was most enjoyable.

Frazzled wrote:

I beat a hard drive with a hammer once. It was most enjoyable.

I don't think that Killkrazy meant to beat something with a hammer.

Suffice to say, this clip made me think of your statement....

Macs get viruses.