Mac antivirus

Beerbaron · 19 Apr 2013 at 09:24

At the company I work for we mostly use MacBooks. The one thing I have noticed is that there is a severe lack of antivirus software being used any where. I come from a Windows/Linux background where security is important. This is my first exposure to the world of Mac and as the new sys admin this needs sorting.

Can anyone recommended a good corporate antivirus?

Thank.

slinxy · 19 Apr 2013 at 09:35

at work we use sophos, it allows us to manage the clients from a windows server.

at home I use nothing.

Beerbaron · 20 Apr 2013 at 09:45

It looks like we don't have a policy for it at work. Apparently no one has raised the issue of having a virus. I know virus/malware is less common with mac but the threat is still out there.

theheyes · 20 Apr 2013 at 10:40

Do the MacBooks live on site or are they mobile?

KIA · 20 Apr 2013 at 11:20

Keeping the Macs patched is way more important.

They should have automatic updates enabled by default if they're running the latest version of OSX. Check for the presence of Java.

We use a mixture of Sophos free & business.

annaharris · 20 Apr 2013 at 13:22

I am using Vipre antivirus at my home and Panda corporate antivirus at my Office.

slinxy · 20 Apr 2013 at 15:04

The issues ain't with mac based viruses, it's more likely that a windows based virus will live on the mac and do nothing to the host machine but spread across the network on to your windows based machines.

I have seen our AV software capture serval windows viruses.. Users will work at home with the windows machine transfer files to a USB drive and plug it in to a mac to transfer the file on to our NAS. :rolleyes:

At home I have an Apple, Linux network.. Therefore I don't bother with anything.. I'm fact there's an idea; I may infect my home NAS on purpose to stop noisy people.. Lol

KIA · 20 Apr 2013 at 16:37

slinxy said:
The issues ain't with mac based viruses

This is a thing of the past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_BackDoor.Flashback
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/02/19/apples-own-macs-bitten-by-java-based-malware-attack/

uniQ · 20 Apr 2013 at 17:19

Trojan/Malware != Virii

And even though I quite like James Lyne, Sophos are known for spreading FUD.

http://grumpybozo.tumblr.com/post/21728887331/sophos-fires-up-the-fud-machine
http://www.securityweek.com/sophos-study-leads-fud-based-headlines

KIA · 20 Apr 2013 at 17:43

This particular attack was widely reported.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...scrubber_after_confirming_attacks_on_own_Macs
http://www.macworld.com/article/2028740/apple-confirms-cyber-attack-will-release-security-tool.html
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-updates-java-in-wake-of-attack

theheyes · 20 Apr 2013 at 18:28

uniQ said:
Trojan/Malware != Virii

Virus does actually equal malware.

Beerbaron · 21 Apr 2013 at 09:56

theheyes said:
Do the MacBooks live on site or are they mobile?

We have hot desking so most people take them home.

There are only a few windows laptops which are normally what the contractors use.

uniQ · 21 Apr 2013 at 10:43

theheyes said:
Virus does actually equal malware.

That isn't what I said though

Malware is malicious code so sure a virus is malware, but not all malware is a virus

Mr-White · 21 Apr 2013 at 10:56

Beerbaron said:
The one thing I have noticed is that there is a severe lack of antivirus software being used any where.

Have you checked the box for the no virus disk that was shipped with it ?

MW

AbsenceJam · 21 Apr 2013 at 14:12

slinxy said:
The issues ain't with mac based viruses, it's more likely that a windows based virus will live on the mac and do nothing to the host machine but spread across the network on to your windows based machines.

I have seen our AV software capture serval windows viruses.. Users will work at home with the windows machine transfer files to a USB drive and plug it in to a mac to transfer the file on to our NAS.

At home I have an Apple, Linux network.. Therefore I don't bother with anything.. I'm fact there's an idea; I may infect my home NAS on purpose to stop noisy people.. Lol

This is wrong. How would the Mac spread the virus if it isn't affected by it?

theheyes · 21 Apr 2013 at 14:52

I think he means via manual transfer of infected files to a shared resource.

slinxy · 21 Apr 2013 at 17:48

Those ain't OS X platform based viruses but java, flash and silver light platform viruses and can quite happy affect machines of other OS that uses the same platform.

I don't run any of that junk on my machines at home, and if it was up to me I would remove it from all machines in the world.

The only wide spread mac based virus was one that was packaged up with a cracked version of iLife or was it iworks?? that was spread via torrents.

I do run a manual scan on my macs once in a while, just to keep the bigwigs happy at work as I do remote in to work machines from my macs. in all cases it's found nothing nor as any of the connected machines with av software moan'd that I was transferring annoying dangerous.

KIA · 21 Apr 2013 at 18:05

slinxy said:
Those ain't OS X platform based viruses but java, flash and silver light platform viruses and can quite happy affect machines of other OS that uses the same platform.

It's Mac malware. Same exploit, different variant of malware.

Syther101 · 21 Apr 2013 at 21:15

Previously used Sophos but after a bug with using it and using Time Machine to backup to a local drive and completely freezing my Macbook I'm currently using nothing at the moment. Something to do with the background scanning and if Sophos and Time Machine were both on the Time Machine drive at the same time it crapped out. Tried adding it to my excluded list as per a recommendation in another forum discussing the issues but to no avail.