Re: Macs - viruses

Bruce Carter (bcarter@mentor.idbsu.edu)
Tue, 30 Jan 1996 23:53:09 EST

At 12:31 AM 1/30/96, Valerie Bruce wrote:
>Someone told me recently that he hadn't heard of a Mac getting a virus in
>years. There are about 5 new viruses created every day.

We haven't had a Mac virus problem for years. Most new viruses are on the
Intel platform.

>I'd like to hear from any Mac users who've had a virus on their computers
>and your experiences with antivirus software.

A long time ago several departments here were infected with nVIR. That was
when we made Disinfectant use mandatory if they wanted support.

>Any problems with Disinfectant? How often do you update?

No problems at all other than it doesn't detect trojan horse attacks. I
update immediately whenever a new version comes out (which generally means
they've discovered something new).

>For home use I have a PC, and got the Junkie virus from the internet.
>(I'm now running fprot)
>I put a Junkie-infected disk into a Mac and ran Disinfectant 3.5. It
>didn't find any virus. Viruses are platform specific then?

Correct, except for macro and script based viruses in cross-platform
products. Case in point, the recent Word macro virus. Regular viruses are
platform specific code. However, a PC virus can infect a Mac running the
DOS compatibility card or SoftWindows.

--
Bruce Carter, Instructional Software Designer     (208)385-1851@voice
Boise State University, Boise, ID  83725          (208)385-1856@fax
http://mentor.idbsu.edu/BruceCarter/home.html     bcarter@mentor.idbsu.edu