What ?!? Anti-virus for Mac?

What ?!? Virus on a Mac !   Not a chance !!  Thats what the Mac fan boys claim.  To certain extent its right.  One of the many high points of Mac is that its not prone to virus attack. Mac is based on BSD and has many security build to avoid virus to change its kernel. Now is it possible to break it, of course !  Comparatively MacOS doesn’t have nearly as many users as Windows, so nobody has taken great pain in coding a virus or malware that would attack MacOS.  There have been a few worms that attacked MacOS, but they were not harmful and didn’t do much damage.  But as MacOs user base increases there is a great chance they will also be vulnerable to cyber attacks. Will it be bullet proof ?

Apple takes great pride in MacOS and hence there are not many security holes that these virus and worms can exploit, so its not as difficult as Windows !  I for one crossed over to the Mac world. I used to have all sorts of issues on my Windows XP and my antivirus was pretty busy fighting fires, crashes, blue screen, reinstall were all common to me up until 3 years ago. For the last three years, its been quiet, all calm. No more crashes, no more virus attack, no reinstall.  This has given me a secured feeling that I don’t even worry about viruses or trojans getting into my system via website (no, I don’t do porn or use bit-torrents!) , but now with recent cyber attacks of Koobface malware that was targeted towards Windows, Mac and Linux users. It was spread through various social networking site likes Facebook and Twitter.
Cyber security analysts says, they expect a lot more virus targeted towards non-windows operating systems as well as windows.  There has been few antivirus softwares out there for Mac.  Norton , McAfee, ClamXav, Avast and Intego are the few of the ones out there that has antivirus for Mac.  The lastest addition is Sophos, they have now launched an antivirus for MacOS.

On Nov 2nd,  IT security and data protection firm Sophos has today announced the availability of a free Mac anti-virus product for home users. Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition for Mac provides automatic detection against existing and new threats for Mac OS . The free antivirus software also have disinfection capabilities that can remove malware infections that may already be present on the Mac.
Its easy to install the antivirus,  here is a video that shows how to install it

I love my Mac and would protect it by all means, so I downloaded the Sophos and installed it on the first day itself. The install was easy and menus are self explanatory and easy to navigate. Once you install it a black shield appears on the top menu bar and as long as the shield remains black, your system is protected.

When I asked it to check for updates, I was surprised to find 151 files that needs to be downloaded to get the detection and disinfection systems up to date.  But since I trust Sophos, I got it all updated and just kicked off a full scan. Lets see what it finds on my Mac that I claim is virus and malware free. Well it better be, cos’ thats where I do all my online banking.

It does take some CPU while its running, but so far it hasn’t bogged down my Mac.  Try it now and comment on how it went on your Mac !!