Are there fewer viruses these days?

[Brendan Burgess]

My Avast blasted a jingle at me yesterday to tell me that an attachment had a virus or worm on it.

I looked at the vault and there have been only around 9 viruses detected over the past year or so. That surprised me - as I thought that they were much more common.

As a matter of interest, when I called the guy who sent me the email to tell him that he had sent me a virus, he said that it was very unlikely as he used an Apple. Are Apples only vulnerable to worms, and not viruses?

Brendan

 

[Paddyman]

There are plenty of viruses out there. Apple is regarded as being fairly secure but it can have its moments. It may be that the file originated on a Windows based PC or that Avast may have given you a false positive.
If you put the virus in the chest (Quarantine) and get the name and details of the virus than you can Google it for further details.
You can also run Avast in tandem with Windows Defender and see what come up.
If you are using Linux or BSB (Unix) then it is very unlikely that you have a virus.

 

[paddyc]

If you are using Linux or BSB (Unix) then it is very unlikely that you have a virus.

Assume you mean BSD here, also "virus" mail may not have actaully be sent from the reported sender, may just have been from somebody else who had both your contacts in their addres book

 

[Brendan Burgess]

I was expecting the email and it did come from the supposed sender.

The virus was on a Word document.

I just deleted it and they sent me the information again within the body of the email.

It hadn't occurred to me that it might be a false positive. The sender did say that no-one else had reported it.

Brendan

 

[tepid air]

Although PCs running the Mac OS are completely unaffected by malware written for PCs running the Windows OS, they can transfer this malware without that user's knowledge. This is most likely how your little visitor gained entry to your PC.

Mac PCs can be vulnerable to malware, but only if that malware has been written to run on the Mac OS. If the malware is written for the Windows OS, it cannot affect the Mac. The worst it can do to the Mac is that it can pass it on to another PC.

Many computer users have difficulty in understanding the concept of malware, and fail to see that its various forms, whether virus, trojan horses, worms, spyware, adware, scare-ware, are no different than normal computer applications. Except for one huge difference; they usually are designed to be installed on computers without the user's informed consent, or to operate without the user's informed consent.

To prevent this happening again, you should let that user know he should use a virus-checker designed for the Mac OS. A good one is ClamXav (if this person uses OS X). It's free, does not need to be running constantly in the background and can be run just once every so often.