Guest User!

You are not Sophos Staff.

Thread Info
  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 4 replies
  • Subscribers 6 subscribers
  • Views 20867 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

How safe is Sophos?

Icelander

Hi, forgive my computer unsavyness and hopefully you'll keep that in mind if you choose to reply.  (simple answers for simple minds)

I just installed the product but was talking with a friend who actually knows something about computers and runs Macs.  He said this about Sophos 

 reading up a bit on this antivirus software some people criticize that it runs with root privileges which could potentially compromise your computer's security,

I'm not sure how much of an issue this actually is so I'd like to throw it out here for comment and discussion.  Thanks very much. 

:1005981


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

    Here's one friends opinion

    "

    Here is my opinion. One mac virus has made it into the wild finally. It is actually dependant on the user to install it while installing some crap they downloaded from the web. This is unlike windows viruses which can install automatically. This mac virus has made 600,000 installs... comparing that to the millions upon millions of infected windows machines you're still **bleep** safe.

    Now whether a mac anti virus is worth it or not is questionable. It certainly won't hurt... and it may help.
    I know Sophos to be a good product. We used it at the city. Now it may run as root, but an anti virus that does not run as root cannot be effective. There would have to be a vulnerability in the anti virus itself in order for it to be used as a back door... this has been known to happen in the windows world. It just shows there is no substitute for using common sense while surfing the web.

    This subject is making news for marketing reasons. The microsoft world would have you believe you are less safe using a mac. This is the first year microsoft has started losing market share in the operating systems. In 5 years I expect microsoft and apple to both be out of that game. My opinion."

    :1006113
Reply
  • 0

    Here's one friends opinion

    "

    Here is my opinion. One mac virus has made it into the wild finally. It is actually dependant on the user to install it while installing some crap they downloaded from the web. This is unlike windows viruses which can install automatically. This mac virus has made 600,000 installs... comparing that to the millions upon millions of infected windows machines you're still **bleep** safe.

    Now whether a mac anti virus is worth it or not is questionable. It certainly won't hurt... and it may help.
    I know Sophos to be a good product. We used it at the city. Now it may run as root, but an anti virus that does not run as root cannot be effective. There would have to be a vulnerability in the anti virus itself in order for it to be used as a back door... this has been known to happen in the windows world. It just shows there is no substitute for using common sense while surfing the web.

    This subject is making news for marketing reasons. The microsoft world would have you believe you are less safe using a mac. This is the first year microsoft has started losing market share in the operating systems. In 5 years I expect microsoft and apple to both be out of that game. My opinion."

    :1006113
Children
No Data