Phishing Like Trojans, phishing schemes-those schemes that trick you into revealing personal and financial data-exploit the weakness of the person sitting at the computer rather than the computer itself. The Mac OS doesn’t and so adware and spyware are not currently something for Mac users to worry about.
In order for the worst forms of this kind of malware to work, the operating system must allow unrestricted access to its more sensitive parts. Spyware is malware that grabs data from your computer and often uses it for the purposes of evil-sending personal information to a baddie or, when using your web browser, redirecting you to sites you don’t want to visit. Some adware is legitimate-part of the price of using a “free” application such as Twitterific or Eudora, for example. Viruses are where we most often employ the “not now, but maybe someday” antivirus weasel.Īdware and spyware Adware is software that has an embedded advertising component-one that displays or downloads ads when you run the software.
Viruses are commonly found in the Windows world. When those programs are launched, the virus code is launched as well and the virus goes about its nefarious business. Many viruses attach themselves to other programs. Virus This is a program that earns its name by its ability to replicate itself, locally and often across a network. In order for us to cover our respective patoots, we must follow up our “Nah, you don’t really need antivirus software” suggestion with “-at the moment, but someday you might” and then we weasel and waffle in anticipation of the day when The Bad Thing Appears and the villagers appear at our gates with blazing torches and the more rustic form of pitchfork.Īnd by care I mean that it’s worth your while to learn the difference between the various cooties that some people too-broadly define as viruses. The hedge for those of us in the recommendation business is that while there may not be viable virus threats now, there could be one day.
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