Virus on a iMac?

Considering none exist for OS X the chances are currently impossible. If you are wondering if a Mac can get a PC virus the answer again is no. OS X continues to be the most secure OS available, it's is updated daily for security behind the scenes.

You can get one of the very few Trojans that are out there. A Trojan is different than a virus, a Trojan must be downloaded and installed by a user. If you follow a basic rule of thumb of not downloading from sites you don't trust and also ignoring popups, emails, etc that say you must download something. Here is a recent article that also explains how to easily safeguard your system:

http://osxdaily.com/2012/04/07/tips-secure-mac-from-virus-trojan/

There was an article in today's paper (D&C) by a regular writer guru that says there is a new Trojan out that affects Macs that comes thru Java and is called Flashback. He doesn't say what it does however. He has this fix that you put into Terminal to see if it exists. My husband tried this and it didn't do exactly what the article said it would, but basically he didn't see anything that said he had this virus at least for the part of the beginning of the terminal which should, according to the article, have said something about the virus not existing. But he did not get any message like that so he assumed he doesn't have it. It did mention at the end of the article in the paper to check for updates and "if you have updated them, you're good.)

itasarah wrote:

There was an article in today's paper (D&C) by a regular writer guru that says there is a new Trojan out that affects Macs that comes thru Java and is called Flashback. He doesn't say what it does however. He has this fix that you put into Terminal to see if it exists. My husband tried this and it didn't do exactly what the article said it would, but basically he didn't see anything that said he had this virus at least for the part of the beginning of the terminal which should, according to the article, have said something about the virus not existing. But he did not get any message like that so he assumed he doesn't have it. It did mention at the end of the article in the paper to check for updates and "if you have updated them, you're good.)

Totally unnessary, if your machine is running Snow Leopard 10.6.x or Lion 10.7.x then run Software Update and Apple has provided a solution. Please also read my last post, it is still correct.