John Norstad, the creator of Disinfectant,
wrote an open letter to the Macintosh community in June. In
the letter, he explained why he was stopping further development
of his dependable freeware virus-fighter. He said it wasn't
necessarily because of the new Autostart worm discovered in
Hong Kong, but because the Word and Excel macro virus situation
was out of control and he no longer had the time or the resources
to keep up with and eradicate them. He then recommended all
Mac users switch to a commercial anti-virus program. Following
the letter, I received many calls and emails expressing people's
fears about this turn of events. I attempted to downplay the
situation by saying the Mac virus scene was still very much
in control and only in a few rare instances should anyone
be concerned.
I was wrong.
In the past 2 months, I've come to understand that, if anything,
Norstad underplayedthe
gravity of the situation in his letter. The truth is, the
Macintosh virus situation is now as bad -- if not worse --
than it was several years ago when viruses were first starting
to proliferate on the Mac platform.
When "thinking
different" isn't such a good idea
Just to prove
how firmly rooted in denial the Mac world is, here is an excerpt
from a Don Crabb column posted on the MacCentral web site
in late July:
"In case you
have been living under a rock, the virus miscreants in the
PC world are at it again. On Sunday, July 26, if you own a
computer running Windows 95 or Windows 98, you face the risk
of losing the entire contents of your hard drive, thanks to
yet another computer virus. Called the CIH virus it will reformat
any hard drive that it launches on. (It can also render
any writable BIOS chip useless. -- Ed.)
Windows 95/98
hard drives, of course. Mac users have no worries about this
virus. And Apple knows it, and are using it in a not-so-stealthy
talk campaign surrounding the iMac and their push back into
consumer markets.
As the tale
was told to me by some pals in Apple sales, 'we'll make sure
that potential iMac customers know that most of these ridiculous
viruses that invade Windows machines are of no concern for
them. With an iMac and the Mac OS, they need not worry.'
Of course,
that strategy overlooks two things:
1. The iMac
(or any Mac OS machine) is subject to lots of other
viruses.
2. Mac viruses
are fewer in number because fewer virus-writing idiots think
the Mac is a platform worth
writing viruses for." Can you believe this attitude? Talk
about needing a reality check! Yes, it is true that the Wintel
world, at one time, had over 5000 known viruses while the Mac
world had 37. That was when Disinfectant was all you needed
and all was right with world. Everyone was urged to use some
kind of virus checker just to be on the safe side. I don't remember
anyone ever saying
"you'll never get a virus if you use a Mac, so don't concern
yourself."
HandHelditems.com - Personalize your iPod with us. Shop hundreds of unique iPod accessories and
save up to 80%.
Apple Store
- The size of a pack of gum, iPod shuffle weighs less than a car key. Which means there's nowhere your skip-free iPod shuffle can"t go. Click Here
Copyright 1996-2007 by Cider Press Publishing LLC all rights reserved. MacReviewZone is not authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Computer. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPod, iBook, iMac, eMac, and PowerBook are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
