Never say never......back in the early 90's I was taking a class at our local junior college via modem. At the intro session, someone raised the question when told that we would be sharing documents about the possibility of getting a virus. The instructor informed him and the rest of the class that Word documents couldn't get viruses. Within a week of that session, the news hit about the first ever Word macro virus infecting Word documents. I emailed him the article about it, but he never responded......moral of the story, never ever say that XX OS or XX platform cannot be infected by a virus/malware/trojan. Eventually someone will take up the challenge and prove you wrong.
On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Mayo, Bill <[email protected]> wrote: > It's splitting hairs, but a Word macro virus is not a "Mac virus". There > were a handful of Mac virii back in the pre-OS X days, but they were all > handled rather readily by the free Disinfectant. There have been sporadic > claims of a virii that affect Mac OS X since it came out, but once you dug > down into the details what you find is that they were more accurately > classified as trojans. Sticking to the strict definition of a virus, I am > fairly certain that there are no confirmed ones on Mac OS X (AV vendors > sales tactics notwithstanding). That isn't to say that they aren't possible > or that there aren't some clever folks that haven't been discovered, of > course. There are vulnerabilities, as there are with any system, and I am > certainly not saying that you have no need to ever be concerned if you have > a Mac. However, when you compare the number of virii and other types of > malware that affect Windows versus those that affect Mac OS X, it is a drop > in the ocean. > > And as for the macro virus situation, I would point out that most of Word > macro virii exposed other issues on Windows or targeted specific Windows > files and were a non-issue if executed on a Mac. Nonetheless, there are a > couple of solutions. My preferred solution is not use Microsoft Office at > all (it is not standard on a Mac and ridiculously expensive). You can also > use the free ClamAV, as I indicated before. > > I understand that this is a Windows administration list, and that is my job > as well. But every time someone asks something about supporting a Mac, > there is a lot of FUD thrown around. On this particular topic, yes it is > true that there is a small amount of malware that can affect Macs. However, > with a little bit of common sense, you can pretty much use a Mac and not > have to worry about it. That may not be true a week or a month from now, > but it is disingenous to suggest that there is some equivalency in the > threats against Windows and Mac OS X. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 2:56 PM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: Re: MAC AV > > On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Jon Harris <[email protected]> wrote: > > Haven't the Mac users in your network told you? Mac's don't get > > malware of any type. > > I had a client once who was an all Mac shop for a while. They believed > that. > > We were hired to install a Windows server and some Windows desktops for > stuff what was 'doze only. We, of course, installed a managed anti-virus > solution. > > It was rather interesting to watch the Windows anti-virus quarantine every > pre-existing Word document they tried to open, as every single last one was > infected with a Word macro virus. > > But Mac's don't get viruses. They blamed the PCs. > > -- Ben > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ < > http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > -- Sherry Abercrombie "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke Sent from Haslet, TX, United States ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
