So my wife was playing around today and clicked on some link that tried to initiate a virus scan and it looked real fishy. Are there any free websites that any gurus know of that can scan a Mac and make sure there are not viruses on their systems? thanks in advance.
I've never had need of a virus scanner, which isn't to say that viruses for the Mac don't or can't exist. The Unix base is pretty rock-solid. I'm guessing she just clicked on some random site with a pop-up ad is all.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=online+virus+scan+for+mac+os ...if you really feel a need for virus scan on a Mac try ClamXav
A computer virus is just a piece of software. If a Mac can run software, it can have a virus. You do get security updates on a Mac right? They must be for security against something.
Ya I thought they were supposed to be pretty solid for anti virus anyway or so said the guy from BestBuy but he coulda just been full of shyt. I'll try that link-thanks aeroman. Just want to be sure since I do some work stuff ect on the computer and don't want any identity theft issues or anything.
It's harder for a virus to just get 'installed' on a mac without more direct input from the user. In other words many times just clicking on the wrong banner ad or a box on a prompt will load a Windows machine with malware, while you have to make a more concerted effort (i.e., enter your system password in when the Mac tells you it needs your permission to install or run a program from a mounted .dmg) on a mac. If your wife just clicked around a few popups in her internet browser she's probably fine. If she actually downloaded something and ran through an install you should be more concerned.
Stop thinking in terms of "viruses" and think in terms of "exploits". Straight viruses are so yesterday. :grin: Most hackers that compete or do security analysis for a living think that OS X (especially when you throw in Safari) is one of the easier platforms to attack. Mac's biggest defense to date has been lack of market share. In order for a virus to spread, it has to have a high probability of spreading. To this point, Macs have only had roughly a 10-12% market share, thereby helping to make them more "secure" as a result. If you look at hacking contests like PWN2OWN, Macs running Safari are taken down quickly and contestants have said they can be easier to exploit. Macs can't be exploited is false. Macs less likely to be exploited is true. As more people start using Macs, this will become less true and we may see people focusing more on writing malware for Macs. Also, as I said in another thread, it also comes down to how ignorant the user is as well.
I've always considered the 'market share'/popularity angle to be a little iffy. OS 9 had much less marketshare than the current Macs and more virus issues. The idea that hackers/malware developers would pass up on any opportunity or challenge (and even at 10% that's a large number, not too mention the Mac's increased public presence now) is somewhat illogical.
Mac OS X itself is more secure in part because of its Unix backend, but also because most people don't care about writing malware for it - there's no money to be had. Pay them enough and they'll bother to do it. This is what PWN2OWN does and proves yearly. They get paid $5,000 - $10,000 to compromise browsers/os/smartphones and rarely do they fail. Mac OS X + Safari gets compromised yearly as do the other OS/browser combinations in PWN2OWN. The guy that has defeated that combination the past 3 years said he had about 20 different exploits that he could use to gain access to the OS and forwarded them to Apple (which attended the event as did Microsoft and others) so they could fix it. The fact these guys can beat whatever you put in front of them if you pay them is proof enough anybody could write something for any of these platforms to compromise security. BTW, one of the hackers at the contest I think this year said he uses Opera as his browser simply because nobody focuses on exploits through that browser since it has such a small marketshare. I also believe Chrome on Windows was one of the toughest to crack initially, but that could be simply because it was so new. I'm actually not sure whether it fell or not. Windows 7/IE8 was actually considered among the more difficult ones to exploit by one of the hackers. I need to find articles.
wow, this is an informative thread. thanks, I aways macs will be easier to exploit once they get popular enough.
It looks like it would have been a website that contained a "fake virus scanner" image to make it seem like a legit program. When the animation stops, a link or button or a form will ask if you'd like to clean whatever it claims to have found, and you'll be duped into downloading SPYWARE or MALWARE. Good thing you stopped it. Many people don't and get tricked.
