On 2024-01-01, Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

> As far as I've ever found using Apple computers since the days of the
> Apple II, *ALL* reports of Mac malware are highly exaggerated and
> theoretical. The reports are always posted by the anti-malware app
> makers to fool the unwary into buying their crap software or by
> know-nothing trolls ... either way it's simply idiotic scaremongering.
>
> Never once in all these years have I ever personally seen nor heard of
> anyone in the real world who actually has malware on their Mac ... and
> I have to help some real numbnut novices who will happily click on any
> link and type in their admin password without a second thought.

I have been using Macs since I inherited a hand-me-down Fat Mac in 1988.
I upgraded the hardware until it was mostly equivalent to the Mac Plus
of the day.

Under System 6 I actually *DID* encounter viruses on, if memory serves,
two occasions. Once I received a pirated floppy disk of a popular game.
I automatically ran the latest version of Disinfectant on it, and it was
infected with "Scores." No Mac viruses in the '80s were particularly
harmful, but Scores has a reputation of spreading rapidly.

There were also boot-sector viruses that spread merely by inserting a
floppy disk. The second instance of me encountering a Mac virus was
probably one of those. I had to go into work on a Saturday to do
something on the company's only Mac II. Before I got to work I ran
Disinfectant, and the computer was infected. I cleaned it up and ran
Disinfectant again, and it tested clean. After a while someone else came
in to use the Mac II. I yielded, and came back later to find the other
user had re-infected the Mac.

I always kept the most current version of Disinfectant on a locked
floppy disk.

Back in System 6 days, viruses were generally passed around on floppy
disks or downloaded from dial-up BBSs. By the time System 7 was
introduced, the Internet was becoming more of a thing for casual users,
and Apple started making it harder for viruses to work their evil.

Much to Disinfectant author John Norstad's chagrin, Northwestern
University licensed the program to McAfee, whose first version under its
new master looked, except for visual branding, just like Norstad's
program. Disinfectant, a great product, was effectively dead.

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In article <umtuv4$lonq$1@solani.org>, Chris Schram <chrispam1@me.com> wrote:

> Under System 6 I actually *DID* encounter viruses on, if memory serves,
> two occasions. Once I received a pirated floppy disk of a popular game.
> I automatically ran the latest version of Disinfectant on it, and it was
> infected with "Scores." No Mac viruses in the '80s were particularly
> harmful, but Scores has a reputation of spreading rapidly.d's
> program. Disinfectant, a great product, was effectively dead.

Yes, back in the day there were a lot of floppy disk viruses, I ran the
Disinfectant INIT for this reason.

I've encoun,tered all the following:
nVIR,
WDEF,
CDEF,
and Scores.

Those old viruses were kind of amazing, all it took was inserting an
infected floppy and your system was infected. You didn't even need to run
any software on it. Then your infected system would infect any floppy you
inserted, so cleanup was a huge time suck.

Disinfectant has a summary of every known mac virus at the time in the
help file. It has each virus Name, history, origin, mode of infection,
possible damage, etc. It is fun reading if this sort of thing interests
you.