Howdy.
Randy, Jim, and Dave did very good responses to this article.
I've been dealing with Macintosh since 1985 and used to be a bit of a
virus expert.
It's difficult to keep up with malware because of the gigantic amount
of it for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft fans who assume that
Macintosh is just as vulnerable as Windows.
For years, Microsoft Windows users, almost all uninformed, have claimed
that Macs are very vulnerable to viruses attacks. I've heard this
bogus claim many times. But if you ask one of these people to actually
name a Mac virus he can't do that.
I think that Microsoft has finally improved Windows security and
reduced the viral threat but at one time there may have been well over
one million viruses for Windows and DOS.
When you hear of stores like Target retail POS (Point of Sale systems)
and Home Depot, Macys, Checkers (hamburger chain), Marriott hotels, the
British National Health System, City of Baltimore, and many others
being hacked, hit by ransomeware, customer data filched, it is ALWAYS
99.99% Windows system. ALWAYS.
For Macintosh System (the original Mac OS from 1984 to 2001), for 17
years, there were 56 Macintosh viruses. Most were "benign" but
irritating. Macintosh System version 9.2 ended life with no known
viruses that could infect it in 2001.
macOS X operating system, introduced in 2001, has had zero viruses for
19 years. None. I have, however, read of one theoretical virus that
was proposed, but never found in the wild, back around 2003 IIRC.
It's important to distinguish between a virus, adware, key loggers,
Trojan horse, and now ransomware. There are different threats and
scams to fool people into downloading something that tries to get a
credit card number.
Last I checked macOS X had a few ransomeware items, An example is FBI
Scam from 2013.
Last I checked macOS X had approximately 19 Trojan horses with most
being made moot by changes made by Apple. 0
For several years, Microsoft Office malicious macros could be
transmitted to Mac from an Office program but this problem has really
almost died out.
I've read of one item that was a problem by using a fake Adobe Flash
installer. It bypassed Apple's Gatekeeper because it had a "signed"
certificate from Apple which was then revoked by Apple.
There have been some cryptocurrency malware items. How many people
here deal with cryptocurrency?
If you want to read some more about the few potential threats, go to
this article in MacWorld UK.
<>
Denver Dan
On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 08:27:17 -0600, DavidU wrote:
In the past members of this group have said there are no viral
threats to Macs, but this article suggests that has changed.
[|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|]
iSent from iDan's GyazMail on my MacPro
