Mac OS

Viruses, trojans and other malware are relatively uncommon on the Mac OS X platform, and as a result currently present a far lower risk than on Windows systems. However, it should be highlighted that their relative absence does not mean that the operating system itself is immune from malware, only that the current combination of a low OS X install base together with the operating system’s security features, make the Mac OS X platform more unattractive than other platforms from a virus writer’s perspective. In some organisations, security policies may mandate the use of anti-virus solutions for all desktop systems, regardless of the relative absence of viruses that specifically target Mac OS X. This could help prevent a Mac OS X system from acting as a virus transmission agent in a heterogeneous computing environment. Mac OS X Server ships with the popular and free (GPL) ClamAV (clamav.net) anti-virus software for Unix. This is a command line application that is best suited to a server environment, but can also be used on the desktop. An easy to use GUI application that uses the ClamAV scanning engine is available from www.clamxav.com which may be more useful to the majority of Mac OS X desktop users. A number of well-known commercial anti-virus vendors now ship versions of their products for Mac.