“Too many people can get taken in by a tweet or a link they see somewhere. The main threat for Macs is trojans, and that’s the same for Windows computers as well. I asked Sophos security expert Graham Cluley if he could identify an actual documented virus, in the traditional sense of the word, seen in the last year or so. There’s no doubt that OS X has security vulnerabilities, whatever name we use for them. It’s using “virus” to mean “malware” because that’s what ordinary people do. Sophos is using that same language shorthand to talk to those same people. But the vast majority of ordinary people don’t make that fine distinction – if it’s bad for their computers, they’ll call it a “virus” even if, technically speaking, it’s a trojan. People who know about security know that officially speaking, a virus makes copies of itself and infects more computers without human intervention. This, I think, is where the arguments about Mac security can get heated. But Sophos is using the word “viruses” to mean “malware”, because for many non-computer-literate people, that is what it means.
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…but the examples they’re giving in that video don’t look to me like viruses they look like trojans and dodgy scripts embedded in web pages. Sophos goes to great lengths to convince you that you do, with videos like this…
SOPHOS HOME MAC REVIEW FREE
The question which remains, and which will always divide opinion (feel free to share yours in the comments) is whether you need virus protection on your Mac. I scanned my entire hard disk, which took about three hours. You can ask the application to scan your local drives, or you can right- or control-click on any file or folder, and ask it just to scan that item (the installer puts a Sophos scanner in your Services menu). I’ve left them running there for a day or so and not noticed any difference – there was no apparent severe impact on system resources, and Activity Monitor showed the Sophos processes weren’t making significant demands on CPU. The basic anti-virus functions will still be running in the background. If you like to keep your Menu Bar clean (minimalists, raise your hands!) you can remove this icon from the Menu Bar.
On first run you’re presented with a very minimal interface: a new icon will appear in the Menu Bar and Sophos tells you “As long as the icon stays black, you’re safe.” Right.
SOPHOS HOME MAC REVIEW INSTALL
The install requires that you use an installer, rather than a simple drag-and-drop to the Applications folder.
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