removing malware

The best free antivirus app for the Mac is ClamXav, which can be downloaded here:

http://www.clamxav.com/download.php

brotharay wrote:

anyone ever get a warning from Comcast Xfinity Constant Guard that a bot has been detected?

Yes and they were wrong. They identified it as a Windows only bot when there had been no PC's using my network. I did find from checking my logs that one of my background apps had gone crazy and was probably sending inquiries out unsuccessfully. Reinstalling the app solved that and I suspect that was what they were seeing.

If your really screwed reinstall osx but i would recommend kaspersky anti virus mac

123pest wrote:

i would recommend kaspersky anti virus mac

Interesting. It seems to have a reputations for causing Kernal Panics and various other issues by many others in this forum.

In a comment to Thomas Reed's Mac anti-virus detection rates he stated "It did horribly."

???

Don't be so shocked! I

t is true Kaspersky is being rated as low as Norton on the Mac.

Allan

Xfinity tried to get me to their crapware. I didn't and I glad.

My suggestion iis to uninstall it ASAP.

Xfinity Constant Guard. It is worthless.

The only thing is good for is causing problems.

Allan

Allan Eckert wrote:

Xfinity Constant Guard. It is worthless.

IIRC, Constant Guard is the Xfinity (Comcast) name for their approach to network security which includes software on their end to identify bot-like behaviour. As I said before, it's not very good either, at least from and OS X standpoint.

They do recommend installing a free A-V package they provide and last I checked it was Norton and we all know what that means.

MadMacs0 wrote:

123pest wrote:

i would recommend kaspersky anti virus mac

Interesting. It seems to have a reputations for causing Kernal Panics and various other issues by many others in this forum.

In a comment to Thomas Reed's Mac anti-virus detection rates he stated "It did horribly."

That's a disappointing result. The results for both ClamXav and Kaspersky came as surprises to me. I expected ClamXav to do worse because the clamav engine itself and definitions have historically been terrible for updating for Mac-oriented viruses/malware. As for Kasperskey, I confess to be running it right now on my MacBook2,1/Snow Leopard. Not a hiccough yet in ~6 months.

I will note that I ran ClamXav for years, but bailed when the on-access scanner crashed or was using 100% CPU as a runaway process. Mark was unable to fix the problem for several months, at which time I decided to go with commercial software.

Let's hope that Kaspersky's detection rates improve.

When one of their techs called me with the offer of that crapware and I told him what he could do with it, he replied back to me that they would cut me off if I didn't install it. To that I replied, Please connect me with your manager so that we can discuss your threat to me. He became very apologetic then but I refused to say any more to him. Eventually I was connected to his manager. I reported his threat and said if I hear one more word on this subject you will not be cutting me off, I will be switching to someone else. I have never heard one more word on the subject yet.

Allan

Trane Francks wrote:

The results for both ClamXav and Kaspersky came as surprises to me. I expected ClamXav to do worse because the clamav engine itself and definitions have historically been terrible for updating for Mac-oriented viruses/malware....

I will note that I ran ClamXav for years, but bailed when the on-access scanner crashed or was using 100% CPU as a runaway process. Mark was unable to fix the problem for several months, at which time I decided to go with commercial software.

Note that in Thomas' update ClamXav now catches most, if not all of his samples and a couple of other A-V vendors have contacted him expressing a desire to improve on their results. He plans a follow-on test, adding some additional products that were over-looked before and re-testing up-to-date versions of the ones previously tested in the not too distant future.

FYI, ClamXav Sentry seems to finally be stable again with the latest version. Seems there were a number of issues and he has a totally redesigned Sentry in early testing.

MadMacs0 wrote:

Note that in Thomas' update ClamXav now catches most, if not all of his samples and a couple of other A-V vendors have contacted him expressing a desire to improve on their results. He plans a follow-on test, adding some additional products that were over-looked before and re-testing up-to-date versions of the ones previously tested in the not too distant future.

FYI, ClamXav Sentry seems to finally be stable again with the latest version. Seems there were a number of issues and he has a totally redesigned Sentry in early testing.

I'll be following this, as I go on-site to various client offices to maintain Windows servers/networks. I need reliable scanning of USB storage to ensure that I catch malware trying to jump from machine to machine on the network. I use the MacBook and its A/V software to detect these nasty bits and give me a heads up re: problems prior to the user even noticing.

Others have already covered the anti-virus aspect of this question quite well. However, the question of what this Comcast warning was all about is still mostly open.

Such warnings can easily be false positives, as "bot-like behavior" is not something that can be identified with 100% accuracy. I have heard many reports of Comcast, in particular, having an issue with false positives. So it could be no more than that.

This may not be a false positive if you have an infected Windows or Android machine in your home. (If you have had a friend visit with such a device and use your wireless network, that could be sufficient.) However, if the only devices in your house are Macs or iOS devices, malware is extremely unlikely.

Another possibility is that you have a neighbor piggybacking on your wifi network with an infected machine. If you have an open wireless network (ie, it requires no password), or if it uses weak WEP encryption, you need to lock it down tight with WPA2 encryption. (See the documentation for your wireless router for how to do that.)

Utlimately, if Comcast is insisting that you scan your Mac with anti-virus software, it's probably not worth arguing. Just install ClamXav (which now detects all of the malware used in my testing, mentioned by MadMacs0), do a scan and report the results.