Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Jolly Roger Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: One More Time: Mac Antivirus Software? Date: 20 Feb 2017 03:27:36 GMT Organization: People for the Ethical Treatment of Pirates Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <190220172131322595%star@sky.net> X-Trace: individual.net HtLp4Y7MV0+eW6kibbdYpwYszNu+KPgV32i5lHGShpAQNv4ohn Cancel-Lock: sha1:ipYH7dZuJ3Fi+UKN6E6WCne477g= Mail-Copies-To: nobody User-Agent: slrn/1.0.1 (Darwin) Xref: csiph.com comp.sys.mac.system:100724 On 2017-02-20, Davoud wrote: > Ken Springer: >> > Almost all of my friends and family use Windows. The last thing I want >> > to be responsible for is to inadvertently infect one of their systems by >> > sending them a piece of malware. > > Doc O'Leary >> In what scenario is this even a realistic possibility? I have zero >> Windows software on my Mac. I have zero reason to send anybody any >> software I *do* have. > > It doesn't work that way. My one and only Mac virus came to my Mac Plus > from a Windows machine. It was in a macro attached to a Microsoft Word > document. Word: the *huge* exception to Mac malware. Word doesn't run macros automatically unless you configure it to do so. The default behavior is it asks you for permission whenever a macro wants to run - tl;dr: if you get infected, it's your own fault. Also, it's interesting to note that by and large, other Mac applications do not allow documents created by those applications to do such things. You can thank *Microsoft* squarely for that nonsense. And for those of us who use alternative (non-Microsoft) applications to read and write files that are compatible with Microsoft's, Word macros is a complete non-issue. -- E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter. I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead. JR