Me and 2 of my friends want to set up a small network through a D-Link hub in a room, we have one Mac on the server though and were wondering if we would have a high volume of spyware and viruses coming through the Mac onto our PCs. We all have basic Ad-Aware and AVG software.
Question about virus/spyware through a network
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Ethereal_Dragon
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Since you are connecting through a hub, and haven't mentioned internet connectivity, I am going to go with this will just be a small LAN for gaming or some-such, with no internet access....
Is the MAC already infected with viruses or spyware that you know of, or are you just afraid of that because it is a MAC and not a PC? A MAC and a PC aren't all that different. On the basic level, it is the same thing. Same hardware, different Operating System.
Is the MAC already infected with viruses or spyware that you know of, or are you just afraid of that because it is a MAC and not a PC? A MAC and a PC aren't all that different. On the basic level, it is the same thing. Same hardware, different Operating System.
Of course I was talking about the internet. I know the Mac does not get viruses like PCs. The question exactly is this:
There is a constant connection to the internet. If the mac goes online to surf around and visits a crapload of sites that would put spyware and viruses onto a normal computer, would the pcs that are also connected to the hub pick up these viruses and such because they're all connected through a hub, or would the pcs be safe? The question is this... would it be better and safer for the pcs if the mac was not connected to the same hub?
There is a constant connection to the internet. If the mac goes online to surf around and visits a crapload of sites that would put spyware and viruses onto a normal computer, would the pcs that are also connected to the hub pick up these viruses and such because they're all connected through a hub, or would the pcs be safe? The question is this... would it be better and safer for the pcs if the mac was not connected to the same hub?
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Computer viruses are spread through files, typically if you open them, so if it's on a Mac, the virus will not do anything to it since it's not programmed for the Mac OS, if the files is transfer to your Windows machine and you "accidentally" click it then yes it can infect your computer since it's design to run on Windows.
Worms on the other hand are quite nasty when you're on a hub, since most worms are spread through network vulnerability, both Mac OS and Windows depending on what network services they run can be infected. It's all dependent of the OS and what the malicious application was design to work on.
If the Mac OS holds the worm or virus, and if the worm or virus was programmed to spread only on a Windows machine, then the worm or virus would probably not be able to spread from the Mac OS to the Windows machine unless you transfer the files to your Windows machine.
It doesn't matter if the Mac is on the hub or not, the Windows will always be vulnerable despite the Mac being there or not. Hub/switches, it doesn't matter much, if you connect to the Internet, you're vulnerable.
Worms on the other hand are quite nasty when you're on a hub, since most worms are spread through network vulnerability, both Mac OS and Windows depending on what network services they run can be infected. It's all dependent of the OS and what the malicious application was design to work on.
If the Mac OS holds the worm or virus, and if the worm or virus was programmed to spread only on a Windows machine, then the worm or virus would probably not be able to spread from the Mac OS to the Windows machine unless you transfer the files to your Windows machine.
It doesn't matter if the Mac is on the hub or not, the Windows will always be vulnerable despite the Mac being there or not. Hub/switches, it doesn't matter much, if you connect to the Internet, you're vulnerable.
Wait... so let me guet this right.
Let's say three people are using three computers on a hub.
Person A is extremely picky about what gets on and off of his computer and wants absolutely NO viruses on it, or as close to none as possible. This includes spyware and whatnot.
Person B doesn't much care, but just for shits and giggles, they'll be the one on the mac.
Person C is a porn addict and frequently looks at porn sites while in the process picking up all kinds of spyware and whatnot.
It has already been made clear that Person B is no more harmful that Person C.
My question now becomes this. Will Person A suffer from the things that Person C does on a regular pc and get the spyware along with him? OR will Person C pick up all of the viruses and such and the other two people will remain unaffected?
Let's say three people are using three computers on a hub.
Person A is extremely picky about what gets on and off of his computer and wants absolutely NO viruses on it, or as close to none as possible. This includes spyware and whatnot.
Person B doesn't much care, but just for shits and giggles, they'll be the one on the mac.
Person C is a porn addict and frequently looks at porn sites while in the process picking up all kinds of spyware and whatnot.
It has already been made clear that Person B is no more harmful that Person C.
My question now becomes this. Will Person A suffer from the things that Person C does on a regular pc and get the spyware along with him? OR will Person C pick up all of the viruses and such and the other two people will remain unaffected?
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Wayniac said:
Person A and B are on a Mac OS, the spyware and virus that Person C gets are programmed and design to run in Windows so the Mac OS user wonÂ’t have any problem. Now if they were all Windows machine it's a different story, viruses are spread through file sharing and spywares are usually the same but someone usually install a program that comes with spywares. A worm differs just a little bit from a virus because itÂ’s spread through network flaws. ThereÂ’s your problem right there on a hub or even switch, doesnÂ’t matter. Mac OS may not be affected because the malicious program wasnÂ’t written for their OS.
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