Member Avatar for Max Dob

:-/

I have am getting an Apple Mac Pro Desk Top as well as keeping XP and Vista PC's.

I have always been told that Apple Macs do not have the same problem with Virus and Trojans.

I have just read at about Two new Apple Trojans.

Can anyone tell me how good MacScan is and any good alternatives?

Any problems If I use the MacScan Virus Control for Apple. All information will be very helpful.

Thanks

  • 5 Contributors
  • 4 Replies
  • 199 Views
  • 1 Day Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by jaxjason

Dani AI

Generated

A short, practical update for and anyone landing here years later: the mid‑2008 trojans you read about included one that abused ARDAgent to gain elevated privileges and a “Poker” family trojan that tricked users into giving up passwords with a fake prompt. Apple closed the scripting/ARDAgent weakness in Security Update 2008‑005 — applying Apple’s updates is the primary fix. (support.apple.com)

Concrete steps that aren’t in the original thread: install Apple’s security updates, disable Remote Management/Apple Remote Desktop if you don’t use it (System Preferences → Sharing → Remote Management), and keep regular backups. Don’t type your account password into any dialog that looks non‑standard — Poker‑type trojans used fake password prompts to capture credentials. If you must support older 10.4/10.5 systems, treat John’s workaround (removing the setuid privilege) as a temporary mitigation only; the supported remedy is the Apple security patch. (thesafemac.com)

About MacScan and alternatives: MacScan (SecureMac) is a Mac‑focused anti‑malware/spyware scanner that targets Mac‑specific threats and cleans tracking cookies; it’s a reasonable on‑demand tool for extra peace of mind. Reviews of the era praised its quick spyware scans, but many people pair an on‑demand scanner with a modern real‑time product for web/download protection. For broader, actively maintained protection consider contemporary options such as Malwarebytes Desktop Security (real‑time + web protection) and other reputable vendors (Sophos, Bitdefender, Intego). (securemac.com)

Bottom line: was right to stress common sense — most Mac trojans work by tricking users — but treat that as one layer only. Patch promptly, disable services you don’t need, use a trusted scanner if you want extra assurance, and keep good backups.

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for selfhelpebooks

Hi there,
Welcome aboard.
Feel free to post your question in the appropriate forum here.
Good luck!

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

moved

Member Avatar for John A

One of the Trojans gains root access without requiring a password by exploiting a gaping security hole in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 via ARDAgent, the remote desktop daemon. To protect yourself against it, open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal, and run the following command:

sudo chmod 0555 \
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/\
Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent

enter your password, and the setuid bit will be removed from the application.

There is no known workaround for protecting yourself against the Poker virus at this time. Good luck.

Member Avatar for jaxjason

First and foremost, use some common sense whenever your downloading from the web. A Modern "Poker game" is never going to be 180K on either windows or mac. (one of them is a 80k compressed "Poker game")

Second, a Trojan requires that you must install the program yourself, and most macs will ask before it runs the program,asking if it is trusted, if it detects that the program was downloaded from a web site. Even giving you the opportunity to visit the website.

The ARDAgent one does not say how it is received, but it is still called a trojan. By definition, this requires the user to install it manually. again, be careful on any machine installing things you don't know the author of.

Virus' are a completely different story, I know of no virus' in the wild that install themselves automatically and transmit information or anything, for the macs. All I have ever heard about is Trojans like these. And those are very rare. Thats why they make the news.

here is a windows list for you
Thousands of Windows viruses and trojans, a few mac trojans. Your still thousands of times safer on a mac than a win PC.

Personally I have never had a virus hit my mac, old or new systems and have never had virus protection on them. Thats been ten years now. Just common sense usually prtects me enough.

Good luck,
Jason

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.