02 Jun 1997 | Print  |

Virus Complacency

by Adam C. Engst

Virus Complacency -- Though there are few Macintosh viruses (especially in comparison to the PC world), in the last few weeks I've received several reports of virus-infected CD-ROMs or files (the most recent one an upload caught by alert Info-Mac archivist Michael Bean). Although all the viruses were old and easily handled by John Norstad's free Disinfectant 3.6, I believe many Macintosh users have been lulled into complacency by the minimal virus problems of late. In addition, many people have become Mac users in the last few years, and thus missed the era when most Macintosh viruses appeared. Most existing Macintosh viruses aren't particularly dangerous, but it's always worth running an anti-virus program. For more information on the different viruses, read Disinfectant's excellent online manual by selecting Disinfectant Help from the Apple menu. If you feel like spending money (we at TidBITS recommend and use Disinfectant), check out commercial virus protection software like Symantec AntiVirus for Macintosh and Datawatch's Virex for Macintosh. [ACE]

<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/util/ disinfectant-36.hqx>
<http://www.symantec.com/sam/index.html>
<http://www.datawatch.com/virex.shtml>

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