@Barry Lane 1
I know Mac users who actually run anti-malware apps on their Macs...strangely these are also the kind of people who never get any malware. They are too alert to do things like download some trojan and execute it.
Most people whom I see with Macs use them because they don't have the first clue about computers, but someone told them, (with chest thumping confidence) that Macs simply can't get viruses, so they would /never/ have to worry.
This translates into smugness and then incredulity when faced with the actual evidence of it.
Personally, I'd prefer to never have to deal with the things at all, but...friends and family, eh? Not seen that many infected copies of Windows 7 lately though. The excptiong being some nasty strain of fake AV software that i think is related to the crud I've been seeing pop up on these Macs recently. It looks like the same crap, and seems to defy virtually every defence you can toss at it.
Also; Macs don’t get “riddled with Malware.” Windows systems get “riddled with Malware.” When a Windows system get a virus there is a flashpoint about 0.3 seconds later as it downloads a bunch of friends, and your system suddenly has somewhere ein the neighbourhood of a thousand infected files and at least 15 variants of different terrible viruses.
When a Mac gets a virus it’s a VERY different story. Current Trojans present themselves as something delicious to their users. They then execute this for whatever reason, and it barks at them for privilege elevation. Wanting to execute whatever it is that is in the package, the user agrees…and seconds later this doohicky has functionally rooted the Mac. It then goes on to download something very singular; a fake antivirus or an IRCbot.
I find more Macs infected with IRC command and control nodes than anything else. Yes; Mac infections tend to require user interaction. Drive by downloads do happen on Macs, but they are ****ing RARE.
Macs are *NOT* immune to malware; and they are gaining market share at a fast enough rate that they are starting to become huge targets for the kind of Malware Trojan scams that Windows users are inured against. Mac users tend to think it can’t happen to them and most of them simply can’t conceive of it…until it hits them.
Ask me this time last year how many infected Macs I had seen, and I would have said one, maybe two in my entire career. Now I am seeing one every other week. There was a ceremony held a month back when I added, for the first time, a suite of Mac anti-malware tools and install CDs to my CD binder for the first time.
This is moving out of the shadows and into the mainstream now.
I hope you guys are ready for it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
