Notes From The Tech Man

I’m often asked what security software to use. I normally have a stock answer of a free software title such as Microsoft Security Essentials. Some time ago I bookmarked a site which had a review of security software. I looked at it today when I was cleaning out my bookmarks.

Matousec.com performs regular testing of security software to determine how well it defends against malware. It’s testing firewall effectiveness and behavior analysis of the security software. I found the results to be very interesting. In particular, most of the common commercial titles (McAfee, Norton, Panda, etc.) get very poor ratings. Unfortunately, Security Essentials is not listed. I assume this is because it uses the built-in Windows firewall and does not appear to have any behavior sensing abilities.

Normally, I don’t recommend using a software firewall. It’s not because I don’t believe they do any good. It’s because they talk too much (the built-in Windows firewall talks to you rarely). A good firewall is going to ask you if a program is okay to access the internet (for the most part). Unfortunately, most of them do a very poor job of explaining to an expert such as myself what is being blocked so that I can make a decision on whether to continue blocking the program. If it’s hard for me, imagine a less adept user?

I was pleased to see that a free solution was number one on the list.  I’ll be giving the Comodo Internet Security a test drive really soon so I can see for myself how well it works.

I’ve spoken previously about the Mac OS being less secure than it has been advertised (and evangelized). Now, it seems, the bad guys are getting more aggressive. This article talks about a feature in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) which is basically a built-in malware protection. Within a short time, malware authors had already found a way around the protection.

While I still believe that the Mac OS is a smaller target, that doesn’t mean it’s invincible or invisible to attack. Get yourself some protection. Sophos offers a free antivirus for the Mac. It works on any Mac running OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or newer on either Intel or PowerPC platform. I’ve been using it and it was worked well for me. I suggest you do the same. If you have a preferred antivirus software other than this, feel free to use it. I just like to recommend good, free software for any purpose.

For quite some time I’ve been recommending the Macintosh for general usefulness and how it tends to have a much reduced problem with viruses and other forms of malware.  Now, however, it appears that the bad software is getting more common and they are targeting the Mac more often.

While I believe the Mac can be made much more secure than a PC more easily (and with fewer inconveniences to the user as a result), my opinion has always been that the primary security feature of the Mac is that there are fewer of them and most of the bad software targets Windows.  There have been some examples recently of malware targeting not only the Mac, but Linux as well.

Sophos has an article which details the history of malware on the Macintosh.  It’s not pretty to think how sophisticated the bad guys are getting with how they are able to target the Mac and other platforms with the same malware.  The attack vector is usually the same for all in that it tells you that you need to install some software to see a video.  The malware determines which operating system you are using and tells you to download the file which works on your computer.

I’ve recommended free antivirus software for Windows for many years.  My current favorite is Microsoft Security Essentials.  Other free antivirus is available from Avast, AVG, and Avira.  There’s also the open source ClamWin, but I don’t recommend it for most people.  Until recently, the only free option on the Mac was the open source ClamXav.  Again, I wouldn’t recommend it for most people.  Back in November, Sophos introduced a free commercial-grade antivirus for the Mac.  Like the free Windows options, it’s only available for home users for free.

Sophos is a bigger name in Europe than it is in the US.  They’ve been doing antivirus solutions for many years and I trust their product.  I’ll be putting it on my Macs at home and I recommend that you do the same with yours.