Apple quietly stops touting the fact that it has a virus-free platform

Tecca ^ | June 26, 2012 | Fox Van Allen

[EveningStar]

The half-a-trillion dollar company finally admits that its software isn't bulletproof.

[RightFighter]

If you think that commercial is not Apple saying “we’re safe from viruses” then you’re either not watching it closely, or you’re so much of a fanboy that you don’t see anything Apple does with objectivity. In the commercial, the “Mac” guy claims “I’ll be fine” when told that there is a nasty virus going around. That is before the PC guy points out that there are thousands of PC viruses. The clear implication is that Apple is saying “Mac users don’t have to worry about viruses.”

[dayglored]

> If you think that commercial is not Apple saying “we’re safe from viruses” then you’re either not watching it closely, or you’re so much of a fanboy that you don’t see anything Apple does with objectivity. In the commercial, the “Mac” guy claims “I’ll be fine” when told that there is a nasty virus going around. That is before the PC guy points out that there are thousands of PC viruses. The clear implication is that Apple is saying “Mac users don’t have to worry about viruses.”

IMO, you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Many years ago, when that series of Mac-PC ads was produced, the simple true fact was that Macs faced negligible threats from any kind of virus. There were a few Trojans that relied on USER stupidity, and a few laboratory-only "proof-of-concept" bits of prototype malware, but no viruses loose in the wild that could do anything. So at that time, Mac users didn't have any significant chance of catching a virus. This generated a lot of smugness among Apple customers, and as they say, pride goeth before a fall.

Now a point of clarification. Trojans which attack the USER are different from viruses which attack the operating system. You could have the most well-protected military-grade system with all manner of security in place, but if the USER with administrative privileges decides to click on a phishing link and then enter their administrator password, there's nothing the system can do to prevent that. So we're not talking about Trojan-type attacks that depend on the user doing something stupid. We're talking about "viruses", which attack the operating system. Right?

Okay, back when the ads came out, there wasn't any significant threat to Macs from viruses. So the ads, while somewhat ingenuous and cutesy, were not incorrect. The ads have not aired (except as archived on YouTube, etc.) in many years. They were done in 2006-2008 as I recall.

These days, five years later, there are some real viruses out there that can infect Macs. It's still a tiny number compared to the Windows viruses, but there are a few, so the phrases "negligible" and "no significant threat" no longer apply to Macs.

In any case, all systems are vulnerable at some level, and all systems depend on the user not doing stupid stuff. Mac users who claim their systems are impervious to infection are foolish (and factually incorrect).

Please also note that no so-called "anti-virus" software gives complete protection either. The total number of active "in-the-wild" Mac-specific viruses today is still LESS than the number of viruses which SLIP THROUGH even the best anti-virus packages for Windows. That's because there are so many Windows viruses, which are being updated daily by the virus makers, that it's just impossible for the anti-virus folks to keep current. They're always playing catch-up, by definition. It's a tough business.

So don't bother being smug about the fact that Macs finally have a few viruses floating around. It's just as bad as the smugness that Apple users carried for so many years. Neither is appropriate to the reality.

[dayglored]

Yeah, I just checked. A copy of the Mac-PC "Virus" ad was uploaded to YouTube in May, 2006. So it's over SIX years old. That's more or less an eternity in computer-tech years. Lots can change.

One thing that changed is that there are a few Mac-specific viruses now. Another thing that changed is that Apple no longer claims immunity to viruses.

So what's the big deal? Like I commented up in #16 above, this "revelation" is not news. It's not even worthy of "chat".

Mountain out of a molehill. And an old molehill, at that.

Oh and BTW, no I'm not an Apple fanboy. I'm a Unix geek professional System Admin who uses everything out there, Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD Unix, you name it, everyday at work and at home. It's my job, and my hobby.

I just hate disinformation, that's all.

[Swordmaker]

Apple changes webpage so another webpage Tecca announces that Apple is no longer "touting" that Macs are free from viruses—PING!

This is of course ignoring the fact that Apple never claimed that... Apple stated that Macs could not get the thousands of PC viruses... and they could not. In fact, despite the fact that there are a couple of dozen Mac Trojan Horse programs in the wild, there are no successful OSX computer viruses that have ever infected Apple Mac OSX computers.

Apple Security Ping!

Please, No Flame Wars!
Discuss technical issues, software, and hardware.
Don't attack people!
Don't respond to the Anti-Apple Thread Trolls!
PLEASE IGNORE THEM!!!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Swordmaker]

Since I've never been a gay Applebot, I've known that all along.

And you've been wrong for 11 years.

[PreciousLiberty]

“Since I’ve never been a gay Applebot, I’ve known that all along.”

Just a gay Microsoftie, eh? ;-)

“Microsoft” - what a manly name for a company...

[TheStickman]

Apple only user here since 2008. Not had a single virus or trojan across 4 different macs in that time.

Better yet, I don’t think that’s going to change. If I surfed porn or warez sites, maybe. Since I don’t I’ve got more useful things to waste my time on that worrying about viruses or PC vs Mac fights.

Peace :)

[Swordmaker]

We who work with Macs daily are STILL looking for a Mac that was infected in the wild with that so-called Flashback Trojan that supposedly self-installed to make up that 600,000 member MacBot that made such a large news event a couple of months ago. I have yet to find ANYONE who was infected. I know hundreds of Mac users. All we saw was anecdotal reports. . . about information from honeypots that were getting hits from "infected Macs" but no one was reporting their Macs as actually being infected!

There was one Freeper who contacted me who thought he might have been infected, but when I told him how to check, it turned out negative.

Many people who bought brand new Macs, who checked their machines with the on-line LISTING of so-called infected Macs provided by DoctorWeb, using the UUID # of their new computer, which DID NOT HAVE JAVA INSTALLED, found their computer listed as a member of the botnet. This was impossible. Yet their computers were listed. Blogs that posted the link for testing software had people reporting back that their machines found NOTHING...even ones that were listed on the DoctorWeb site as being members of the botnet!

I looked for over a week at various help forums and found not a single report of an infected machine cleaned of the so-called virus—except a few reports from people who were obvious trolls who gave clues they were not Mac owners by what they wrote ("I bought this damn Mac because of the ads saying it would never get a virus, and since it did, I'm going to buy a Windows 8 computer for my next computer!" or "Apple lied to me about how it would never get a virus! So I'm going back to Windows! Never trust Apple again!").

This had all the earmarks of a HOAX perpetrated to sell anti-virus software for Macs... which it was very successful at doing.

That kerfluffel has passed completely from the awareness. . . as have all the others. I still stand by the statement that there are no OSX viruses... Trojans, yes, viruses, no.

[jacquej]

Now that many are using both the Mac OS and the Microsoft OS on their Macs, I would guess that some will holler and whine that Macs can too get PC viruses, not realizing that it is the operating system, not the hardware.

Have been using Macs since the Apple IIe, & never have had a virus or a trojan. But that doesn’t mean a thing for the future.

I don’t understand the hostility to the Mac OS. It is unseemly, in my personal opinion.

[dayglored]

I haven't seen any actual evidence of "Flashback" myself, nor have I talked with anyone who has. My own take on that is that it was a purposeful scam propagated by a few anti-virus researchers and vendors, to boost AV sales. At this point, months later with no actual evidence and lots of counter-evidence, it's the only reasonable explanation.

Call me a cynic. But I'm usually right about that kind of stuff.

I won't argue your claim of zero OSX viruses as of today. I'll only say that I don't have the data to prove it either way, and it's impossible to "prove" a negative. Since few serious researchers are setting up banks of Macs to try to demonstrate autonomous propagation (required for it to be a true virus), I don't know when someone with real authority will come up with a provable Mac virus.

I do think someone eventually will, and may have already. So I take a somewhat less hard-line position in the present.

Now let's see, how many dozen new Windows viruses and strains appeared just in the past 24 hours?

To be fair to Windows, I find Win7 very stable and secure, and I like it best of any Windows release to date. I use it about 12 hours every day to run my System Admin department. Works great. And damn few new viruses and strains can get into a proper Win7 install.

But a huge number (is it still a majority?) of Windows users in the wild are still on XP, and most are NOT patched up to date with security fixes. Even with the growing popularity of OSX, Windows machines remain the target. They are the target that keeps the virus writers busy, and will keep them busy for years to come.

[Revolting cat!]

“Gay Applebots” and “Trojans” and “Macs are safe”? The jokes write themselves, I’ll step aside.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Nope. It did not say Mac was virus free, sorry.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Nope. Have any others?