I often get asked 'Should I use Antivirus software on my Mac?' The answer is: it depends. Note: This is a multipart article, The risk of getting infected on macOS is significantly lower than on Windows. But it is not completely zero.

For years, Mac users were told they were safe. In a world where every connected device is a potential target, even Mac users need to rethink their security. Ms office 2016 for mac. I often get asked 'Should I use Antivirus software on my Mac?' The answer is: it depends. Note: This is a multipart article, Part 1 is available here The risk of getting infected on macOS is significantly lower than on Windows.

It is hard to find any good study on this topic (), but this is a widely accepted fact at the moment. There are many factors which contribute to this lower risk: • Fewer people use macOS than Windows • macOS upgrades (major releases) are typically free for a longer time than the Windows, therefore more Mac users update their OS than Windows users. Microsoft started the free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 some years ago, but previously, an upgrade like this was not free. • People using macOS tend to pay for their software and are less likely to pirate it from shady sites. Pirated software may contain adware, backdoors and hidden Bitcoin miner software that may harm your computer.

Personally, I am not a fan of macOS Antivirus. MacOS Antivirus never was the focus of development at AV companies. Internet explorer latest version free download for mac. It is mostly reactive, and there are a lot less proactive features in it than in the Windows counterpart. For example, on Windows, AV can warn when a program accesses the webcam. On macOS, the AV can turn off the webcam, but it can’t warn when a program accesses the webcam.

When looking at independent tests of macOS Antivirus, you have to know that most labs do not have access to the latest macOS threats, so they tend to test with old and known malware. Which means the gap between synthetic test results (100%) and real life are even wider than in the case of Windows Antivirus tests. In other words, anti-malware tests you may read in magazines can be very misleading, as these tests are far from representing the real-life situation. Also, macOS includes its own AV called, which does a basic job of preventing the user from running malicious programs. GateKeeper prevents known malware from starting and warns the user if (s)he tries to execute unsigned stuff. But there are ways around GateKeeper. For example: scripts (e.g.

Or Microsoft Office macros. Or in-memory malware. Or probably tens (hundreds?) of other ways. These techniques all can circumvent the built-in protection on Mac, which the more sophisticated malware products frequently do. So then how do I protect myself? Instead of focusing on Antivirus, I recommend people install software which can restrict unauthorised access to critical parts of the operating system.

Networking One of the best security tools for macOS is. It is a software firewall which will notify the user every time an unknown application starts to communicate over the Internet. Training it in the first few days can be a bit time consuming, but after this time it performs nicely. Problems can arise with application updates themselves not causing rules to not work anymore.

Online meeting applications (GoToMeeting, Webex) can be particularly troublesome – these are updated frequently, and they may try to communicate with hosts on arbitrary ports. File Access Another great macOS tool is (formerly Little Flocker), which monitors read and write file access. The same training concept applies as with Little Snitch – after the initial training period, it just works. On the above screenshot, Microsoft Word tried to read/write/execute the 133t_0day.sh.