Mac attacks rare, but real – eat your words oh Mac zealots

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 22 October 2006 20:58

Your IT - Entertainment

Being security conscious for some time now, when a friend purchased a G5 iMac at least a couple of years ago, I received a review copy of Norton Internet Security 3.0 for Mac (an older superseded version nowadays), and installing this turned out to be a of a nightmare – it just wouldn’t install properly.

Symantec, at their launch of Internet Security 2007 for PCs advised me that their latest version for Macs was vastly improved, and had a massive following in Japan. I’ve requested a copy to see for myself. Sophos also make a well regarded security package for Mac users, and I wholeheartedly recommend you install one.

Why? So you stop being the carrier for Windows viruses and other malware that can pass through your system – be it emails, Word documents, Powerpoint or other infected files. Macs may be invulnerable to these Windows vulnerabilities, but if you’re passing on the problem, instead of being part of the solution, you’re hardly helping.

Of course, some Mac users will not care – the attitude will be to serve the PC owners right. But not only is that not the right attitude to take, despite the fact you need to pay money to help protect others which some will feel is not their problem, having an Internet security package on your Mac will nevertheless help to protect you from the very small number of vulnerabilities out there, and new ones as they are found (and updated into that Internet security package).

Seeing as I’m soon to buy a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro (basically, as soon as they are released), I hardly want to encourage malware writers to start targeting the Mac. But they hardly need any encouragement from me, they’re already self motivated.

The Intel-Mac’s ability to run multiple operating systems at the same time is the main attraction for me – and no doubt many others as well. Will I enjoy having a relatively safer experience when using the Mac side of things? Of course. But I’ll be investing in Sophos or Norton Internet Security for my Mac, as well as investigating what other alternatives are out there. I certainly won’t just blindly accept that Apple knows best and has everything sorted out for me. That’d be like trusting the Government has everything sorted – and I’m hardly about to start doing that.

What I have noticed, both in reports from fellow Australian technology journalists, and from my own experiences helping Mac owning friends with issues, is that what usually takes out a Mac is a hardware failure.