Do Macs get viruses?

[Nogol]

what you said is true. The only virus I see for Mac OSX is the Idiot Virus..

Hold Command + S at restart
then type in rm *

Had a friend do that and lost his system ...LOL he is dumb sh*t !!

is it true juz do that and i will lost my system??? i got a powermac g4 and an ibook g4... should i try that hold command thing????

[J-Luv]

try it and let me know what happens so i can not do it.

[Nogol]

lolz, nah... not gonna try it... maybe it's a way the apple guys install all the system stuffs...

[SJT]

apple-s at start up boots into single user mode, which is meant for repairs and diagnostics. You will have root access in single user mode, so

rm *

will basically delete every file in the current directory.
This probably wouldn't cause that much damage (not that you should try), because as far as i'm aware, by default you'll be in root's user directory, which doesn't actually have that much in it.
If you were to type

rm -rf /

however, that would start at the top level of your hard drive and delete everything downwards (including subdirectories, which rm * would not).

Don't do this.

[Orkar]

For the record as I sorta mentioned before....

Mac's are just as vulnerable to viruses!!!!

The reason they don't get them is for such a small market (compared to pc's) nobody seems to be willing to write the viruses.

Virus writers are essentially cyber terrorists.

This means they're underendowed weasel creatures that couldn't hook up with anything but their own hands and relieve themselves by annoying the world with their spewed out digital filth.

Of course this means they get off on annoying as many people as possible.
Thus they attack Windows OS on PC's.



and to repeat myself verbatum:

Also be cautious of anyone who can script or code for the Mac platform. A variety of performance evaluation tools already exist for macs ("Bossware"). These can easily be abused.

[SJT]

For the record as I sorta mentioned before....

Mac's are just as vulnerable to viruses!!!!

The reason they don't get them is for such a small market (compared to pc's) nobody seems to be willing to write the viruses.

I think this is a misconception about the definition of viruses.
By definition a virus on a computer is self-propogating; it duplicates and spreads itself.
This is very difficult to do on Mac OS X (and the majority of Unixes these days).

For example, a common attack vector on Windows is through email. This is because MS have implemented automated scripting/application execution in their email program.
The same method for getting something to execute without the user's knowledge doesn't exist on Mac OS X, or for example, in Mozilla Thunderbird.

The same applies to services, by default on Mac OS X they are turned off and to turn them on you have to authenticate as an administrator.
Until very recently (SP2 I believe), this was not the case with Windows.

This means that at the very least on Windows the holes are not only there, but are open by default, whereas on Mac OS X the holes are closed (i.e. the ports and services that might have exploits) by default.

This also doesn't take into account the fact that the services that might be exploitable on Mac OS X are open source (OpenSSH, Apache etc), so they usually have a rapid turnaround for patching and vulnerability discovery. The only weakness here is the speed that Apple then release those patches through software update, which can sometimes be slow.

Of course, this doesn't mean Mac's are immune, it's just the case that the exploiter has to get the user to actually run some Trojan or root kit.
This is not the same as a virus.

This is a weakness that affects any computing system in the world; social engineering. You can't account for people wanting to run anything they like without questioning it.
The best you can do is to restrict the installation of new applications to administrators and give warnings.

[EternalSunshine]

Macs rarely get what we'd call the typical "virus," but they can collect spyware like any other computer. You just have to clean that garbage off your computer every once in a while.

I've used macs for close to ten years now, not a single virus that I noticed.

[J-Luv]

will i be more open to viruses since i have installed windows media player for mac on my machine? i have OSX

[SJT]

No, windows viruses can only run on windows.
As far as I know there aren't any exploits specifically for Media player on the Mac.

[wattsup]

No, windows viruses can only run on windows.
As far as I know there aren't any exploits specifically for Media player on the Mac.

Unless you have Office for MAC with Micrsoft Word and Excell on it. Then you can get macro viruses.

[sportzguy933]

I think this is a misconception about the definition of viruses.
By definition a virus on a computer is self-propogating; it duplicates and spreads itself.
This is very difficult to do on Mac OS X (and the majority of Unixes these days).

For example, a common attack vector on Windows is through email. This is because MS have implemented automated scripting/application execution in their email program.
The same method for getting something to execute without the user's knowledge doesn't exist on Mac OS X, or for example, in Mozilla Thunderbird.

The same applies to services, by default on Mac OS X they are turned off and to turn them on you have to authenticate as an administrator.
Until very recently (SP2 I believe), this was not the case with Windows.

This means that at the very least on Windows the holes are not only there, but are open by default, whereas on Mac OS X the holes are closed (i.e. the ports and services that might have exploits) by default.

This also doesn't take into account the fact that the services that might be exploitable on Mac OS X are open source (OpenSSH, Apache etc), so they usually have a rapid turnaround for patching and vulnerability discovery. The only weakness here is the speed that Apple then release those patches through software update, which can sometimes be slow.

Of course, this doesn't mean Mac's are immune, it's just the case that the exploiter has to get the user to actually run some Trojan or root kit.
This is not the same as a virus.

This is a weakness that affects any computing system in the world; social engineering. You can't account for people wanting to run anything they like without questioning it.
The best you can do is to restrict the installation of new applications to administrators and give warnings.

Fanboy .

[SJT]

Thanks for the insightful response to my post...

[J-Luv]

Unless you have Office for MAC with Micrsoft Word and Excell on it. Then you can get macro viruses.

i recently got an iMac and installed word mac and the entire suite. what is a macro virus and is it something i should be worried about?

[SJT]

A macro virus is a script written in VBScript, the scripting language used in Excel, Word and Powerpoint.
It can be used to do some nasty things, but as far as I know, they are limited to within MS Office.
Whenever you open a document in Office which contains macros you will be asked if you want them to be enabled or not. Only enable them for trusted documents.

[swak]

A macro virus is a script written in VBScript, the scripting language...

The last time I looked VBScript is a language written by Microsoft only for windows and thus it doesn't work on a mac. Another thing is for all you who say that windows get all the viruses because they have the bigger market would only be true if os x and windows were basically the same at the root. Which they're not. os x runs on a permissions system that in order to damage the computer majorly you need root access which can only be gained with the admin password. I'm not saying that there are probably a few holes. But, Apples response time is much faster than Microsoft's. Microsoft releases everything in a bundle which could be up to a month or so. But for Apple, if it's a major virus then the response time can be up to 12 hours before they get the fix out. Who would spend the time to program a virus that first of all counts on the user's stupidity and then second of all won't last all that long? Another thing, there is no spyware/adware out for macs. Just by doing a google search I couldn't find any software for removing them. Wouldn't there be at least one program for removing them if they were really a problem?

[swak]

Ok I found out that I am wrong about the spyware. But, it has the same issues as viruses. It's very limited what the spyware can do. Excuse me.

[gerbick]

Tracking cookies is about as bad as it gets on a Mac... so far.

[J-Luv]

yo, so should i even buy virus protection for my imac or jus get some spyware removal and call it a day?

[SJT]

At the moment, a virus scanner is pretty pointless unless you're dealing with a lot of word/excel/powerpoint documents which you send on to PC users.
If that ever changes, and someone successfully writes a mac virus, i'm sure you'll hear about it in the press and so on

[wattsup]

NO - dont waste your money virus scanner unless like SJT said.