Daniel Settles wrote:

This is just not the case and has been debunked many times.?

There are hundreds of millions of Macs and over a billion iOS?
devices. ? There are more devices running macOS X and iOS than there?
are Windows devices.

Apple just does a better job at security.

“Security through obscurity” was bunk when they started claiming it 15-20?years ago.

EtreCheck Pro, in its brand new release, contains this note:


"Probably one of the most widely misunderstood topics is computer security. First of all, remember that Apple provides multiple layers of antivirus and malware protection in the macOS operating system itself. You don’t need any 3rd party antivirus protection. When you first turned on your Mac, it was probably the most secure that it has ever been. Most suggestions posted on the internet to install software or change system settings will make your machine less secure. Many popular 3rd party security products are simply scams and give you no protection of any kind.

"Most of the popular media headlines about security exploits do not concern your Macintosh. Do not pay attention to news media or bloggers. Trust Apple. Apple has a team of professional software engineers who specialize in system security. If your machine needs an update for security, Apple will provide it. "


___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

On Feb 19, 2020, at 6:11 AM, hoplist wrote:

I quote from the article you cite above. "Unfortunately even Macs have been affected by Ransomware attacks, although these are very rare, as you will see if you read on.”

And if you read the article, you will see that while criminals have tried to create ransomware for the Mac, they have either been unsuccessful, or they have been quickly shut down, and no ransomware for the Mac remains in the wild and the Mac gets hardened against each failed attempt so that an entirely new method of attack has to be devised if the criminals want to try again.

Attacks don’t get named until after they happen. The most dangerous attack is a zero-day attack—the attack that has never happened before.

Windows bigots have been saying that there will be a flood of malware for the Macintosh "real soon now" since the advent of OS X...19 long years ago. When something shows up in the wild that is really virulent and Apple doesn't immediately patch the Macintosh against it, it will be....the first such thing. We can all run around like chickens with our heads cut off *then*. Until then, there is nothing to be done to protect ourselves from that which does not exist (and which may never exist). Even anti-virus software requires that its developer have a sample of the malware that it is protecting against to be able to create a protective "definition".

I've been running anti-virus software for close to two decades (because my profession requires it), and in all that time it has not yet saved me even once from something that I needed saving from.

The software and knowledge is out there. It’s not even particularly hard to find. Ask a hacker.

I have a software engineer in the family. He says that it's really really hard to write malware for the Macintosh. And he's not the only one:

"Is Windows inherently more vulnerable to malware attacks than OS X?"
<>
or

I’m not trying to scare anyone.

Then I think that you need to re-read your posts and think about how they are being perceived.

I believe the risk is low and remains low.

Correct.

Macs are safer because no one bothers to target them. It’s not worth the effort. There are simply too few Macs compared to Windows.

That's utter BS that is long out of date. There are well over 100 MILLION Macintoshes in use:
<>

Viruses and Operating Systems
by David Pogue (originally published in the New York Times)

What concerns me is the pervasive myth that Macs are somehow inherently “safe.”

Well, judging by the virus definitions in the ClamAV database, there are between 5 MILLION and 6 MILLION pieces of malware for Windows. (Think about that for a second.)

Based on all believable sources, there have been between 50 and 100 pieces of malware for the Macintosh (more likely closer to the lower end estimate) created in the last two decades, almost all of which no longer exist in the wild, or the Mac has been patched against them.

The Macintosh has several layers of protection:

XProtect/File Quarantine/Gatekeeper/MRT/SIP


(OS_X)







So, yes, just empirically I'd say that they Macintosh was fairly "safe." For two decades now I've heard some folks say that "soon" there will be a flood of viruses for the Macintosh. For years now my bet has been that there won't be. (If there was going to be, I would have expected it years ago, when the Macintosh had less built-in security.) I should have bet money on it, I'd be rich.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

On Feb 19, 2020, at 7:59 AM, Otto Nikolaus via Groups.Io wrote:

Plus the fact that Mac users are seen as smug, which surely makes them even more of a target.

The bad guys who create malware these days aren't hobbyists. They are organized criminals. The create malware to make money. Creating malware for the macintosh is very difficult. It takes many months and huge amounts of money to create effective malware.

So they aren't creating malware because they want to get back at "smug" Mac users. They either see an opportunity to make money or they don't.

The thing is, Apple makes such an endeavor unprofitable by fairly quickly pushing out security updates to protect against new threats as they arise. The Mac OS includes several layers of anti-malware protection. In fact, the fact that Apple is so on top of this, combined with how hard and expensive it is to write malware for the Mac almost surely discourages malware-writing criminals from targeting the Macintosh. It is a waste of their time if Apple shuts their malware down before they can make much, if any, money off of their malware. They may not even recoup their original investment to create the malware in the first place.

In 2011 when the Trojan "Mac Defender" appeared, it is interesting to read about the lengths that Apple went to to protect us from it:

Mac Malware 'Explosion' Missing In Action


___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

Howdy.

This is just not the case and has been debunked many times.

There are hundreds of millions of Macs and over a billion iOS
devices. There are more devices running macOS X and iOS than there
are Windows devices.

Apple just does a better job at security.

Denver Dan



On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 09:11:28 -0500, hoplist wrote:

I’m not trying to scare anyone. I believe the risk is low and remains
low. Macs are safer because no one bothers to target them. It’s not
worth the effort. There are simply too few Macs compared to Windows.
And writing effective malware is, in fact, quite hard.

[|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|][|]

iSent from iDan's GyazMail on my MacPro

On Feb 18, 2020, at 10:43 AM, Randy B. Singer wrote:

There is NO ransomware in the wild for the Macintosh. NONE.

"Can Macs get ransomware and how to stop a ransomware attack"

I quote from the article you cite above. "Unfortunately even Macs have been affected by Ransomware attacks, although these are very rare, as you will see if you read on.”

Attacks don’t get named until after they happen. The most dangerous attack is a zero-day attack—the attack that has never happened before. The software and knowledge is out there. It’s not even particularly hard to find. Ask a hacker.

I’m not trying to scare anyone. I believe the risk is low and remains low. Macs are safer because no one bothers to target them. It’s not worth the effort. There are simply too few Macs compared to Windows. And writing effective malware is, in fact, quite hard.

What concerns me is the pervasive myth that Macs are somehow inherently “safe.” That is dangerous. Like keeping your door unlocked because you live in a “low-crime” area (which I must admit that I do). Macs are no harder to hack than any other system. The fact that they have been rarely targeted in the past is not protection against targeting in the future. Maryland rarely has earthquakes but the potential for a massive, city-shattering quake as big as anything California has ever seen sits below the state. Rare is not non-existent. Should I prepare? There is no easy answer to that question.

I also like keep in mind that OS of choice for the best and brightest computer minds is not Windows or Mac. It’s linux.

Cheers,
tod

P.S. If you want to be scared, read Edward Snowden’s book, "Permanent Record," or listen to the Audible series, "Dark Web” or frankly any good book about real-world hacking and global security.

Tony M wrote:

Check Now: NPAPI Plug-In Version 32.0.0.330 is installed
Install Now: PPAPI Plug-In is not installed.

So if I click on Check Now it shows that Flash Player is up to date. What is?the PPAPI Plug-In?

On 12 August 2009 a page on Google Code?introduced a new project called?Pepper, with the associated Pepper Plugin API (PPAPI);?PPAPI is a derivative of?NPAPI aimed to make plugins more portable and more secure.?This extension is?designed specifically to ease the implementation of out-of-process?plugin execution.

PPAPI was initially only supported by Google Chrome and?Chromium. Later, other?Chromium-based browsers such as?Opera?and?Vivaldi?added PPAPI plugin support.

In February 2012?Adobe Systems?announced that future Linux versions of Adobe?Flash Player would be provided only via PPAPI. The previous release, Flash Player?11.2, with NPAPI support, would receive security updates for five years.?In August?2016 Adobe announced that, contrary to their previous statement, it would again?support the NPAPI Flash Player on Linux and keep releasing new versions of it.

In January 2020, Google announced that support for PPAPI would be removed from?Google Chrome and Chromium in June 2021.

开云体育

I am running macOS Catalina Version 10.15.3 and when I go to System Preferences and tap on Flash Player to see if it needs an update, I am confused (maybe too easily I add). Here is what is shown in the open Updates tab:

Patsy Price wrote:

Using High Sierra 10.13.6 on 2017 iMac as long as I can get by with it. I still?use Flash Player for some favourite sites and apps, and will continue to do so?till they all replace Flash.

Some sites will present you a Flash site if your browser tells the site that it has?Flash available, and will present a fully-functional non-Flash site to browsers that do NOT?have Flash.

If these are not sites requiring a registered-user login, and if you were willing to?tell us the sites, we could test them for functionality without FLash.

For example, I removed the last traces of Adobe from my computer 2-3 years?ago, and do not feel I am missing anything on any websites I have gone to in?the interval.

Eventually I succeeded in force quitting the installer in Activity Monitor, but?that didn't solve things. I couldn't eject the disk image.

Re-boot.
The mounted disk image should be gone, although the .dmg file it mounted?from will still be present.

I tried to restart the computer, but it wouldn't let me do so till I quit the?installer, which I didn't succeed in doing.

You can always just use the On/Off button…

Finally I managed to shut down the computer with the button on the back,?and then restart it.

See? <grin>

After a frustrating experience trying to upgrade my Flash Player, I asked:

What's next with Flash Player upgrade installer? Suggestions? Explanations?

Randy replied:

Delete Flash with this uninstaller:
<>

Use EasyFind and do a search for anything with "Flash" in the name and uninstall it:

EasyFind (Free)


You may want to also do a search for "Adobe" and delete what you find if it does not relate to another Adobe product that you have.

Restart your Macintosh.

Download the full Flash installer from this Adobe site:
<>
Use it to install a fresh copy of Flash Player.

Thank you, Randy! Thank you for clear instructions, which I will follow tomorrow. I expect to sleep well tonight.

Patsy

On Feb 18, 2020, at 5:04 PM, Patsy Price wrote:

What's next with Flash Player upgrade installer? Suggestions? Explanations?

Delete Flash with this uninstaller:
<>

Use EasyFind and do a search for anything with "Flash" in the name and uninstall it:

EasyFind (Free)


You may want to also do a search for "Adobe" and delete what you find if it does not relate to another Adobe product that you have.

Restart your Macintosh.

Download the full Flash installer from this Adobe site:
<>
Use it to install a fresh copy of Flash Player.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

Using High Sierra 10.13.6 on 2017 iMac as long as I can get by with it. I still use Flash Player for some favourite sites and apps, and will continue to do so till they all replace Flash.

In System Prefs I had Flash Player set to notify me to install updates. A window told me an upgrade was available. Instead of going through that window, I went System Preferences and proceeded to download and install from there. The installer hung at 95% and I couldn't get out.

I tried so many things that I'm now quite confused.

Eventually I succeeded in force quitting the installer in Activity Monitor, but that didn't solve things. I couldn't eject the disk image.

When I thought I had gotten rid of the problem, I went to adobe.com and downloaded the upgrade from there and started over. The installer again hung at 95%.

I tried to restart the computer, but it wouldn't let me do so till I quit the installer, which I didn't succeed in doing. I managed to quit Brave browser, which I had used to download the installer the second time, but then couldn't relaunch Brave.

By then I had two disk images on desktop, one for Adobe Flash Player, one for Adobe Pepper Flash Player (which I had never heard of before this).

I couldn't restart the computer. It said I must first quit the Adobe installer. This time I couldn't force quit it in Activity Monitor.

Finally I managed to shut down the computer with the button on the back, and the restart it. No disk images on the desktop. I have relaunched Brave and Safari with no problem.

I still haven't upgraded Flash Player, and I'm afraid to try again. In System Prefs I have changed my pref to allow Adobe to install updates.

With my old Macs I felt fairly confident and generally understood what I really needed to. But with my current iMac and OS, I'm quite naive, and a slow learner thanks partly to my aging brain.

What's next with Flash Player upgrade installer? Suggestions? Explanations?

Thanks,

Patsy

On Feb 18, 2020, at 10:43 AM, Randy B. Singer wrote:

There is NO ransomware in the wild for the Macintosh. NONE.

"Can Macs get ransomware and how to stop a ransomware attack"



___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

On Feb 18, 2020, at 8:47 AM, hoplist wrote:

We shouldn’t split hairs. A malicious attack is a malicious attack. Malicious attacks against Mac users are on the rise,

Please give us a link to a reputable Web site that lists these new attacks by name.

particularly ransom attacks.

There is NO ransomware in the wild for the Macintosh. NONE. Ransomware is a scourge for Windows users, but the Macintosh is not Windows.

One disreputable company that wants to sell folks anti-virus software wrote a fictitious "report" about a supposed rise in Mac malware, and now a lot of folks are panicking. But..it's not at ll true. The MalwareBytes "report" lists no new malware, gives no citations, and isn't backed up by anything. It's a lie.

Other people should not be going around yelling that "the sky is falling" without citations.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

We shouldn’t split hairs. A malicious attack is a malicious attack. Malicious attacks against Mac users are on the rise, particularly ransom attacks. There are Trojans for Mac. There are browser hijacks which are OS agnostic. Malicious emails are a dime-a-dozen.

Most “security” software is multi-threat, and good software made for Macs can offer an additional layer of protection. Whether any given security software is useful or worthwhile must be considered on a case by case basic.

Both Mac and Windows OS currently have good protection built it. There is an argument to be made that security software suites are obsolete on both systems for reasons too complicated to get into here. However, Windows users have good options and because the software works and because Windows users are more likely to be attacked, the use of this software is routine. Similar options for Mac users are weaker and because Mac users are less likely to be targeted, such security software is not widely recommended. That does not mean it is not useful, just that people have judged it less necessary.

I personally don’t use Mac security suites, but I am vigilant against threats. I use mail services that aggressively scan incoming mail. I use secure browsers (Firefox, Opera) rather than the default, though this is arguably more about privacy than security. Also, don’t use Chrome. It’s essentially spyware. My systems sit behind effective firewalls. I keep security features enabled in the OS and run good backups.

Cheers,
tod

On Feb 17, 2020, at 7:04 PM, Jim McGarvie wrote:

Thanks for the tip, Randy. I’ve installed it and am evaluating. So far so good.

I played with it a bit last night...and I'm impressed.

Please let me know what you think of it.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________

Thanks for the tip, Randy. I’ve installed it and am evaluating. So far so good.

Jim

On Feb 17, 2020, at 12:40 PM, McAllister wrote:

My wife's printer is a Brother MFC-J485DW.

The printer doesn’t recognize a brand new Yellow cartridge. It continues to complain that the Yellow cartridge is out of ink. We also tried a second new cartridge. Same effect.

What might be the problem? Is there anything else we should try?

Is the yellow cartridge a genuine Brother cartridge or a third party cartridge?

If a Brother cartridge, I'd consult Brother. If they can't make it work, I'd ask for a refund or replacement of your entire printer, since that means that it is defective.

If it is a third party compatible cartridge, I'd consult with the company that makes that cartridge, and at minimum request a refund for that cartridge.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance

___________________________________________