Is Norton 360 needed with Apple's built-in safeguards?

The idea that a third party, with no special knowledge of the inner workings of MacOS, can somehow find a simple way to protect or speed up your computer — that is not already being done by MacOS itself — suggests that the MacOS developers are somehow "holding out on you". That is absurd.

 You should remove any and all (other than Apple built-in) virus scanners, speeder uppers, optimizers, cleaners, App deleters or VPN packages you installed yourself, or anything of that ilk.

The key feature is that MacOS does not allow just 'any old junk' from anywhere to become Executable.

The second feature that makes the first one bulletproof is that malware can not attach itself to parts of the System.

MacOS shares a lot of the lock-down mechanisms developed for the iPhone. Applications are all sand-boxed with a list of the resources they require, and they cannot access anything outside their sandbox without crashing. Signed Applications are checked that they are from legitimate Developers, and Notarized Applications are delivered with the assurance that they have NOT been modified since their release by the Developer.

Introduced just before MacOS 12 Monterey, the system is now on a Separate, cryptographically—signed ‘sealed System Volume’. The Mac runs off read-only snapshots of this volume, which is not writeable using ordinary means. Any unauthorized changes to the crypto-signed volume are very quickly detected and you are alerted.

So you could store just about every malware known to mankind on your Mac, and your Mac would not get infected spontaneously. Scanning for virus-like patterns might make you feel a little better now, but non-stop scanning is outdated nonsense, and a tremendous waste of resources.

Nothing can become Executable Unless/Until you supply your Admin password to "make it so".

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Some users may prefer to create a new Admin User with a unique password (be sure to write that password down somewhere). Then log in as the new Admin and demote their daily-use account to an "ordinary" non-Admin account. In that case, nothing can be installed "by accident" because you will need to provide both the Admin Username AND Password to install anything. This gives you an additional step to pause and think about whether you really want to do this.

Warial wrote:

I currently have Norton 360 Premium on my imac, iphones and ipads. I read that it is not needed on apple products. Is it still safe to not renew Norton and have apple safeguards protect my apple products?

I don't use any "security" software on my Mac – with the exception of the free version of Malwarebytes, which I run once in a blue moon. It never finds anything.

Modern versions of macOS have several layers of protection against malware.

Protecting against malware in macOS - Apple Support

These days, criminals often find it easier to target you than to target your computer, tablet, or phone. If a criminal can trick or frighten you into compromising your own security, they do not have to crack your device security … or even purchase a crack for your device security from other criminals.

Recognize and avoid social engineering schemes including phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support

So if you

• Stay away from "dark corners" of the Web
• Stay away from pirated software
• Keep an eye out for "phishing" and other forms of social engineering attacks that target you
• Use an up-to-date Web browser

that cuts down on a lot of the risk.

Conversely, if you panic the first time that you see a message like "Your computer is infected with 13 Trojan viruses. Click here to remove viruses." or "You've bought XYZ for $301.95. Call within 24 hours to request a refund." and do as the fake "security" messages say to do, you will deliver yourself straight into the hands of the criminals.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

Many years ago, in the days of System 7 or slightly later, I had Norton render my computer almost useless for the better part of a day, while I took it out piece by piece, having only minutes until it froze again.

That's gotten far less common, thankfully. The built-in anti-malware has been reasonably effective at preventing the worst of macOS corruptions from false positives in add-on anti-malware apps from various vendors.

That’s before discussing single-user operating systems lacking protected storage and protected memory, too. Some sorts of app bugs used to take down the whole system. That whole class of bugs is less common nowadays. Except some add-ons that can bypass those system protections.

And add-on security apps (and anything else with deep fully-privileged access) have other considerations. Here are some of the vulnerabilities found in Norton and Norton-adjacent apps in the past couple of years:

https://app.opencve.io/cve/?q=product%3ANorton%20AND%20created%3E%3D2024-01-01

I concur with the other responses. You don't need Norton at all.

Effective defenses against malware and ot… - Apple Community

It was NEVER needed on the iOS devices, because nothing from "outside" that has not been vetted can be installed.

¿What version MacOS?

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

The idea that a third party, with no special knowledge of the inner workings of MacOS, can somehow find a simple way to protect or speed up your computer…

Here’s Norton, erroneously trying to clobber part of macOS itself, from last week:

Third-party tool identifies Agent-BGP Tro… - Apple Community

And failing too, as the built-in anti-malware detected and blocked the attempt

Warial wrote:

TAHOE 26.5.1

Apple Mi chip

I’d remove the add-on security apps, use the built-in defenses, and update to macOS 26.7.1.

You couldn't get me to touch Norton with a barge pole.

Many years ago, in the days of System 7 or slightly later, I had Norton render my computer almost useless for the better part of a day, while I took it out piece by piece, having only minutes until it froze again.