BACKGROUNDThough it is common to talk about “computer viruses”, that term actually includes
viruses, worms, trojan horses, macros, and other malware. The impact of having one or more of these malware on your computer can range from benign, to sluggish performance, crashing, corrupted documents, to complete erasure of your drive. There is also the risk of passing the malware on to others by way of email or file transfer. Currently over 600,000 active malware exist in the Windows world. Depending on who you want to believe, there are between 1 and 20 active malware in the Macintosh world (excluding MS Office macros).
SHOULD YOU PROTECT YOUR MAC AGAINST MALWARE?
Absolutely. But one must understand there is a trade-off. Anti-virus (anti-malware) software can take 10% or more of your CPU time. This has to be balanced against the possibility of infection, passing along an infection to others (it’s really not nice to pass a virus to others), losing data, directory damage, and very expensive data recovery and system repair. However as a generic blanket statement I do recommend (almost
demand) installing anti-malware software on every PC and Macintosh, as the risk far outweighs the cost.
WHICH ANTI-MALWARE TO USEDozens of anti-malware utilities exist for Windows systems. Some free, some shareware, most commercial for-fee. One of the best available is free, and comes from Microsoft (I know, “quality” and “free” are not typically associated with M$). It may be downloaded from the
Microsoft Security Essentials website.
There are several commercial anti-malware utilities available for the Mac, and even a few free and shareware utilities. As always, there are pros, cons, and trade-offs. Typically, I recommend installing
Intego VirusBarrier as the fastest, most effective utility. However, if the budget isn’t available I recommend
ClamXav. The reasons for ClamXav include:
- I like free as much as the next guy
- Almost as effective as commercial solutions
- The underlying engine for ClamXav (ClamAV) is used in Mac OS X Server, and in many firewalls. It has proved itself to be reliable.
There is never any free lunch. The downsides to ClamXav include:
- Scans only for Windows malware, not Macintosh-specific malware
- Has been know to severely impact computer performance
- Once a malware has been detected, the user may need to manually locate the file to trash it
That said, you may want to consider one of the commercial solutions as they may offer:
- Technical support
- Much better performance, lower cpu utilization
- More timely updating
The commercial offerings include:
Intego VirusBarrier. $70. $35 each with a 10-user license.
- Great interface.
- Realtime signature-based and behavior-based scanning.
- Protects against both Mac- and Windows-specific malware.
- Excellent performance, low impact on overall system performance.
Norton AntiVirus. $50.
- Dated interface.
- Realtime signature-based protection.
- Protects against both Mac- and Windows-specific malware.
- Good performance, low impact on overall system performance.
McAfee VirusScan for Mac. $38 (minimum order 3 licenses)
- Dated interface.
- Realtime signature-based and behavior-based scanning.
- Protects against both Mac- and Windows-specific malware.
- Good performance, low impact on overall system performance.
- May be centrally managed.
Sophos Endpoint Security and Control. Pricing based on volume.
- Good interface.
- Realtime signature-based and behavior-based scanning.
- Protects against both Mac- and Windows-specific malware.
- Good performance, low impact on overall system performance.
- May be centrally managed.
VIRUS REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Tags: virus, anti-virus, clamxav, norton AntiVirus, Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, McAfee VirusScan, Intego VirusBarrier, SecureMac, Cisco Cyber Risk Reports, United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team
