[X-Newbies] MAC VIRUS

Randy B.Singer randy at macattorney.com
Fri Feb 17 12:19:40 PST 2006


carwesg at aol.com said:

>Just got an e-mail informing that there is a Virus for us, MAc users!!!
>What do you think?  

See:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060216075452766

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060216075452766

Apparently it is more in the way of a Trojan, not a virus, and it is not 
malicious. So there is really no reason to get upset about this. The 
above links offer several ways to guard against it.

>I thought a G5 having a firewall was protected!

A firewall really has little or nothing to do with virus or Trojan 
protection.  A firewall keeps outsiders from accessing your computer via 
the Internet.  In other words it protects you from hackers.  However, a 
firewall obediently allows you to download anything that you want to.  A 
firewall therefore does  nothing to keep you from downloading a virus 
infected file or a Trojan.  If you are worried about the latter, what you 
need is an anti-virus program that will scan incoming software.

>Are we protected or should we protect ourselves and how?

There are third-party offerings to protect you against malware, but 
generally Apple only offers security patches to prevent broad categories 
or types of security breaches.  They don't usually offer specific 
anti-virual or Trojan protection.  At least they never have in the past.

If you want an anti-virus program that will protect you from all known 
Mac malware, and any that will arise in the future, I highly recommend 
Intego's Virus Barrier:

http://www.intego.com/virusbarrier/home.asp

But if you didn't feel that you needed anti-virus software before, I 
don't think that this latest Trojan is important enough that it should 
change your view on this.



Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Routine OS X Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html 



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