My laptop ate my youngest child.

I poured 2 fingers of scotch into the DVD slot of my iMac and now it won't start. You owe me.

No because I don't use a mac. I am sure google would be a better source

Uhhh owning it.

No operating system is immune to viruses, worms, trojans.

There are several differences between Windows and .nix systems.

1st is the approach to security. Windows has been notorious for shipping with open ports and services that the general consumer will never need. Up to at least XP it was possible to set up a new machine with a superuser, basically root account, that has no password.

Software has the ability to install without any notification to the user or any authentication.

Windows, Word, Excell, Exchange, IE share far too much base code. A vulnerability in one of them can allow access to all.

OS X ships with root disabled and enabling it takes multiple deliberate steps. It is not possible to create a user account without a password. Software installs all prompt authentication. Unless you have direct physical access to the machine getting malicious code installed is extremely difficult. Apple embrace the standard Firewall protocol, anything that is not explicitly allowed is denied.

The architecture of the OS, while not immune to being infected, makes it extremely difficult for an infection to spread to the rest of the OS much less another machine.

And OS X is in part Open Source. There are 100x's as many people looking for and shutting down vulnerabilities then there are people trying to create an exploit.

Think of it like illegal immigration, it will always happen, how often it happens is a direct result of your commitment to stopping it. Strong border feces, increased number of agents, multiple checkpoints etc...

So in other words, you made a statement based on...a feeling?

Maybe we should move this to PARF - Mac is a religion after all :p

Anti virus apps for OS X are a generally bad idea.

Every offering from Symantec, McAfee and the smaller guys have created more problems related to slow systems, instability etc... than the risk warrants.

The least problematic so far has been ClamAV (free) although performance hits have been reported.

The Symantec and McAfee solutions have in the past actually INCREASED the risk to OS X users.

No viruses in the wild for OSX, sorry, haters.

Meantime, if you're a Windows user infected with Conficker, or want to know if you are, go here:

http://www.confickerator.com/

I read about it in a tech journal dude. Im sorry for repeating it.

In your original post perhaps you should have said "I read in a tech journal that more and more viruses are coming out for Macs" as opposed to simply stating it as a fact.

The source of those statements in tech articles is usually traced back to unbiased industry experts like Symantec.

It would be very amusing if it was all an April fool's joke.

It's suspected that the 'April 1' reference found in the code is a straw man. Some feel the worm will start to activate in the next couple of weeks, when vigilance drops off.

Most malware now is created with commercial reward as the intent, not destruction.

Probably should have done that.

Apr 1 was only "phase 1" of the bug, as i read the other day.

The "sky is falling" part has not happened yet.

On my puter virus thread there are links to several free programs that will remove the conficker bug.

OK, for the last two hours I have been rebooting per the instructions and still dont see the circle!

There is one other way to detect and remove it, described in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

All I know is that it was a nasty bug, am still recovering my pc from it right now.... got in undetected, I was using CA Security Suite, hijack this, spyware guard and spyware blaster.... will keep my cpu on automatic update from now on....

p.s. my last update was five days before infection..

So after I smashed the speakers & the monitor & ripped all of the wires off the back of my computer that means that the virus is gone?

Ian

I think you managed to de-rick it, at least.