41–50 of 78 posts
Whether you use antivirus or not, use an adblocker. Keeping broken monetisation strategies alive is not your job, keeping your data safe is.
I never used any third-party antivirus software. AFAIK both Windows and macOS have built-in antivirus software, although I think that it's not required either. Properly patched software to minimize risk of RCE vulnerability and brain to avoid running untrusted programs should be enough.
macOS does not have built-in antivirus software, hence the question.
My approach is to make my PC disposable. With all cloud services its a lot easier than it used to be. IE * Working code in github * Photos in offline multiple HDD * Docs in cloud servers and important ones printed out. This way I dont really care if I get a virus, or gets stolen, or destroyed in fire or HDD crash etc. I actually locked myself out of my encrypted laptop and it didnt really matter - I just reinstalled…
Why would you have bothered encrypting the laptop if everything is in the cloud/elsewhere anyway?
It is my considered opinion that "no anti-virus" is still the best practice for nearly everything. About the only place it makes any sense is in your email filters or anywhere else the public can send random bullshit. At best they incur an ever present performance hit while only catching the lowest of low-hanging fruit. At worst they are constantly getting in your way with false positives (which train you to ignore a…
At worst, AV is an increase in attack surface, as detailed in the CIA wikileaks.
you need AV on your corporate macs. No excuses. For those in "my enterprise doesnt need AV, because AV is stupid" camp: In the last week, the enterprise AV: * Blocked 15 cryptominers * Blocked 3 email based ransomware attachments * Blocked 6 phishing emails * Blocked 3 installs for MacKeeper (PUA) * Found 4 other adware-type infections on hosts Without it, these things would have hit the organisation. AV -- it will c…
This [1] post last year pointed to Google Project Zero, which found dozens of exploits in popular AV software. What if your third-party AV is your lowest hanging fruit? How many issues did your AV itself cause? How would you know? [1]: https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-...
(of course i am ignoring APT/nation state 0day, as it is not specifically about AV, all software is vulnerable against an adversary of this skill). If you worry is APT attacking your AV, you best to be looking at your Operating Systems first.
My approach is to make my PC disposable. With all cloud services its a lot easier than it used to be. IE * Working code in github * Photos in offline multiple HDD * Docs in cloud servers and important ones printed out. This way I dont really care if I get a virus, or gets stolen, or destroyed in fire or HDD crash etc. I actually locked myself out of my encrypted laptop and it didnt really matter - I just reinstalled…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At worst, AV is an increase in attack surface, as detailed in the CIA wikileaks.
Not everyone's threat model includes actors out there bypassing AV. Most people need AV to be able to protect themselves against accidentally opening a spammy, script-kiddie level spam mail.
My approach is to make my PC disposable. With all cloud services its a lot easier than it used to be. IE * Working code in github * Photos in offline multiple HDD * Docs in cloud servers and important ones printed out. This way I dont really care if I get a virus, or gets stolen, or destroyed in fire or HDD crash etc. I actually locked myself out of my encrypted laptop and it didnt really matter - I just reinstalled…
One of the best anti-virus tools on any platform is a good adblocker (I prefer ublock origin). It completely removes large classes of infection sources (malvertising, fake download buttons, etc). Then disable macros in office products. If every IT department did that, they’d have much more time for useful work. Whether you use antivirus or not, use an adblocker. Keeping broken monetisation strategies alive is not you…
No, they'd have smaller budgets
For example, I occasionally receive Office documents or ZIP archives from clients.
If those should contain viruses these likely won’t affect my Mac but I can inform my client about this, help him fix his security issues and prevent viruses from spreading even further.