Should You Buy An Antivirus Update Is Released

The first and best line of defense is always going to be your own intelligence.

Its a common myth that macbooks dont get viruss, however the truth is they are common, especially with 3rd party applications.

I purchased the Kaspersky Anti Virus but also us iAntiVirus.

There are only 44 known pieces of Mac malware in existence (by my count) that have ever been able to infect Mac OS X, and most of those are extinct at this point.

Kaspersky does so-so at detecting Mac malware, but has been known to cause some problems, including data loss with one version of a Kaspersky tool.

As for iAntivirus, that is now owned by Symantec, and Symantec products in general dont do very well at detecting Mac malware.

Should You Buy An Antivirus Update Is Released

On top of that, iAntivirus has no facitilties for updating its anti-virus definitions, so they only get updated when an infrequent app update is released.

See my testing of 20 different Mac anti-virus programs from January.

A reliable Mac anti-virus program is just about as hard to find as viruses themselves, IMO.

It does not apply to software, such as keystroke loggers, that may be installed.

That threat is in a different category, and theres no easy way to defend against it.

If you have reason to suspect that youre the target of such an attack, you need expert help.

This feature is transparent to the user, but internally Apple calls it XProtect.

The malware recognition database is automatically checked for updates once a day; however, you shouldnt rely on it, because the attackers are always at least a day ahead of the defenders.

Security updates to the code of obsolete systems will stop being released at some point, and that may leave them open to other kinds of attack besides malware.

By default, applications and Installer packages downloaded from the network will only run if theyre digitally signed by a developer with a certificate issued by Apple.

His identity is known to Apple, so he could be held legally responsible if he distributed malware.

That may not mean much if the developer lives in a country with a weak legal system (see below.).

It has, however, the same limitations as XProtect, and in addition the following.

Sandboxed applications may prompt for access to private data, such as your contacts, or for access to the network.

Never click through any request for authorization without thinking.

MRT runs automatically in the background when you update the OS.

It checks for, and removes, malware that may have evaded the other protections via a Java exploit (see below.) MRT also runs when you install or update the Apple-supplied Java runtime (but not the Oracle runtime.) Like XProtect, MRT is effective against known threats, but not against unknown ones.

It notifies you if it finds malware, but otherwise theres no user interface to MRT.

Should You Buy An Antivirus For Mac