Auto Update for Sophos on OS X

[trees]

For those of you who wish to run Sophos on their OS X machine, autoupdate is now supported and working when pointed at the "free" UofA CCIT Sophos update server. Previous problems with this were resolved. It turns out that the Mac version needs a slightly different path description than does the Win version.
Soooooo. . . . in the Sophos setup in System Preferences, under the "AutoUpdate" tab, you need to put:
http://sophosru.arizona.edu/esosx
into the text field for the URL. That's it!!!

[jasonk]

Well, now all 0 of the people who run an AV on MacOS can update!

:)

[ajj]

question -
i've heard that Macs are really secure and there is really no reason to have an AV cause most the virus out there are for PCs. I realize that people have made a few viruses over the years. yet, i am wondering, should i put an AV on my Mac?

[trees]

Well, I happen to be running the Sophos for Mac client, but only because I had to to help the sys ops folks get the autoupdate problem fixed. It doesn't seem to get in the way so I'll probably leave it on.
No, as of now there are no virus problems on OS X. Sophos on Mac does block MS macro crap, but the market push is actually to help out in the Whinedos world by not forwarding MS malware along. Whatever.

[powellm]

Andy,
YES! You should!

[lnp]

Everyone, regardless of platform, should have an AV client installed and properly running. While I've never had a virus issue, I like the fact that it scans all my e-mail attachments, preventing me from passing on a potentially infected file (such as viruses that incorporate themselves into users' Word documents and get passed on that way) to others.

[ajj]

cool beans... i thought that was the case, i was just trying to confirm what i already thought was the case.

[Unregistered]

Uhh.. only computer novices should have antivirus. Well, I don't think even novices would need AV for Macs, at least yet, since there have be no viruses for over a decade for Mac OS. All AV crap does is slows down your machine and causing problems that novices would think is caused by the OS.

[richard5]

Uhh.. only computer novices should have antivirus. Well, I don't think even novices would need AV for Macs, at least yet, since there have be no viruses for over a decade for Mac OS. All AV crap does is slows down your machine and causing problems that novices would think is caused by the OS.

Actually we get macs in with viruses every once in a while at the underground. Leopard already has a trojan written for it too.

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=68860

[emurphy1]

Actually we get macs in with viruses every once in a while at the underground. Leopard already has a trojan written for it too.

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=68860
The trojan described in the link is not a OS X 10.5 specific trojan. It requires a user to download an executable file and then type in the admin user name and password to install. It is an example of the kind of social engineering virus that has been around for a long time. Really, nothing new here.

[richard5]

The trojan described in the link is not a OS X 10.5 specific trojan. It requires a user to download an executable file and then type in the admin user name and password to install. It is an example of the kind of social engineering virus that has been around for a long time. Really, nothing new here.

Regardless, the person I was replying to said there hasn't been a virus for OSX in years. I was just showing them that wasn't true.

[dcv]

^ Semantically speaking, a virus and a trojan are completely different animals. And this is a super sad trojan at best - it's like if I wrote an applescript to do rm -R /, calling it pr0n.app, and sending it out with high hopes. It's a social hack, not an OS X vulnerability.

//Grammar Nazi

Anyhoo, this trojan is a topic of discussion up tonight on OSCRTV. The lesson - just because you own a Mac, doesn't mean you're allowed to be complacent.