Guest User!

You are not Sophos Staff.

Thread Info
  • State Verified Answer
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 5 replies
  • Subscribers 6 subscribers
  • Views 10226 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Suggested
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Please Alleviate My Malware Ignorance

wstrohm

I own Sophos Anti-Virus v 7.3.11C, updated as of May 7, 2012. Scans have never shown any "threats." However, I have some general questions about malware and anti-malware programs.

My computer is a PPC PowerMac 2.7 GHz dual-CPU G5 (early 2005). I am running Mac OS X Tiger, v 10.4.11 and Safari v 4.1.3. Sophos runs fine on this system, and I have no questions about it specifically.

Just exactly how vulnerable are my Mac, OS, and browser to the recent malware infecting Intel Macs? I have never had any type of virus, Trojan, backdoor, or other malware on my system in the last 7 years. I have read that Flashback attacks through Java, but since everything I have read on various blogs is oriented toward Intel Macs, I have no information on whether my system even can be affected. Back in 2005, Macs were pretty much malware-free. Are these new threats applicable to my computer, or not?

In fact, are the current forms of malware even capable of running on any PPC (IBM) CPU? IIRC, the instruction set for a PPC970 and any Intel chip are sufficiently different that a "universal" app is required to run on both. Are current malware programs in that format, or are they targeted specifically at the Windows and Mac Intel systems?

I would like a clear idea of my risk level, if one is available.

Thanks very much for reading this!

----    Bill 

:1007213


This thread was automatically locked due to age.
Parents
  • 0

    Just to add:  I think I found a piece of feedback you left on the Mac malware cleanup article.  Based on the path you quoted in that...

    /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/R_______ S_____ MacBook Pro/Latest/...Urgent_notice_of_eviction.exe

    ...it looks like the item is in a Time Machine backup.  You probably want it gone, but for the mean time doen't worry too much about it - it can't do anything in there.  You may even want to exclude your Time Machine backups from future scans so detections like this don't come back - it's all comes down to how much you want to give to the task.

    Because Time Machine backups are files within files they're complex.  SAV can read the files and alert you but then can't cleanup.  You would need to enter Time Machine and delete the item manually, but you should have a look at the logs first so you know where in Time Machine's timeline to jump to.  Watch this:

    :1016037
Reply
  • 0

    Just to add:  I think I found a piece of feedback you left on the Mac malware cleanup article.  Based on the path you quoted in that...

    /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/R_______ S_____ MacBook Pro/Latest/...Urgent_notice_of_eviction.exe

    ...it looks like the item is in a Time Machine backup.  You probably want it gone, but for the mean time doen't worry too much about it - it can't do anything in there.  You may even want to exclude your Time Machine backups from future scans so detections like this don't come back - it's all comes down to how much you want to give to the task.

    Because Time Machine backups are files within files they're complex.  SAV can read the files and alert you but then can't cleanup.  You would need to enter Time Machine and delete the item manually, but you should have a look at the logs first so you know where in Time Machine's timeline to jump to.  Watch this:

    :1016037
Children
No Data