Even Macs Need Antivirus Protection Yes, the big data breach stories most often blame Windows computers. Yes, there's a ton more malware written for Windows (and Android) than for macOS. Think that means you don't need protection? Think again. Macs have suffered attacks from ransomware, and when your essential files are locked up by ransomware, it doesn't matter what platform you're running. Creepy peeping-tom malware has turned on webcams to spy on Mac users. And it's getting worse. One estimate has the number of macOS-centered malware exploits rising 270 percent during 2017. Fit your Mac out with antivirus protection now, before things get even worse. We've scanned the field to help you make a choice. As with Windows antivirus tools, the most common price is just under $40 per year for a single license. ProtectWorks is unusual in that a single $29.95 payment lets you protect all the Macs in your household, with no subscription needed. And with Sophos Home Premium, $50 per year lets you insall and remotely manage protection on 10 Macs or PCs. At the high end, you pay $99.99 per year for a three-license subscription to Intego Mac Internet Security X9. Free Mac Antivirus Protection There's another angle to the variation in Mac antivirus pricing. How about paying nothing at all? Avast Security (for Mac), Avira Free Antivirus for Mac, and Sophos Home Free (for Mac) are totally free for personal use, although Sophos technically limits you to three devices, macOS or Windows. AVG also offers free antivirus for Mac, but until its phishing protection improves we can't recommend it. The best commercial products offer more protection but if you can't afford the best, at least install a free antivirus. Avast Security Pro (for Mac) offers everything found in the free edition, plus ransomware protection and Wi-Fi intruder detection. I don't consider the added features worth the product's $59.99 per year subscription price. It merits three stars, but not a spot in the chart. Malware Protection Lab Certifications When you go to select a new washer, refrigerator, or other appliance, chances are good you research it first. User reviews can be helpful, as long as you discard the very best and very worst of them. But actual test results performed by an independent lab give you more reliable information. Two large labs include macOS antivirus products in their testing, and all but three of the products in this roundup received certification from at least one of them. Malwarebytes declines to be tested, on the basis that its unusual detection mechanism isn't compatible with current testing methods. And the labs didn't choose to include ClamXAV or ProtectWorks. The researchers at AV-Test Institute report on four different tests whose results feed into product certification. Naturally, the first test involved detecting and eliminating macOS malware. Of the products in this roundup, scores range from 99.4 percent to 100 percent. Another test challenged the antivirus tools with lower-risk PUAs, or potentially unwanted applications. Most achieved the top score, over 99 percent, though several products scored much lower in the most recent test. Several of the products also earned the top score in a test using Windows malware. With just five percent detection, Intego is lucky that this test did not affect certification. In the macOS malware test by AV-Comparatives, almost every charted product scored at least 99 percent, and a couple managed a perfect 100 percent. Webroot stumbled just a bit, with 96.9 percent protection. This lab, too, included a test using malware aimed at Windows. Yes, these samples can't affect a computer running macOS, but they could conceivably escape to Windows machines on the network. Scores in the Windows malware test ranged from 35 percent to 100 percent, which is quite a span. Results in these tests have a much smaller point spread than in tests of Windows antivirus utilities. It's good that most products in the chart received at least one certification for Mac protection, and even better that some received two certifications. Malwarebytes earned a three-star good rating, but because of its unusual detection and remediation mechanisms, it's not suited to lab testing, and hence has no lab certifications. The chart also doesn't include free products such as Sophos and Avira, but you can find all of these products in the blurbs at the botom of this roundup. Hands-On Phishing Protection Testing When I test malware protection on Windows, I use live malware inside an isolated virtual machine. I've coded a number of analysis tools over the years to help with this testing. Little of that testing regimen carries over to the Mac. Phishing, however, isn't platform-specific, and neither is my antiphishing test. Phishing websites imitate secure sites, everything from banks and finance sites to gaming and dating sites. If you enter your credentials at the fake login page, you've given the phisher access to your account. And it doesn't matter if you are browsing on a PC, a Mac, or an internet-aware sewing machine. Over half of the products in this story include protection against malicious and fraudulent sites. With ClamXAV, Intego, and ProtectWorks, this just isn't an included feature. The venerable SiteAdvisor component of McAfee AntiVirus Plus (for Mac) should provide protection against dangerous URLs, but it hasn't worked since March, when an update to Safari disabled it. Even the latest update still doesn't have a working SiteAdvisor. I'll revisit my McAfee review when they manage to fix that feature. The wily malefactors who create phishing sites are in the business of deception, and they constantly change and update their techniques, hoping to evade detection. If one fraudulent site gets blacklisted or shut down by the authorities, they simply pop up with a new one. That being the case, I try to use the very newest phishing URLs for testing, scraping them from phishing-focused websites. I launch each URL simultaneously in five browsers. One is Safari on the Mac, protected by the Mac antivirus that's under test, and another is a browser protected by Norton on Windows. The other three use the protection built into Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Discarding any that don't fit the phishing profile, and any that don't load correctly in all five browsers, I report the product's success as the difference between its detection rate and that of the other four test systems. Very few products, Windows or macOS, can beat Norton in this test. Of the products in this roundup, only Bitdefender did better, though Kaspersky came close. It's worth noting that, while phishing is platform-independent, phishing defense is not. Bitdefender's Windows edition, tested at the same time, beat Norton by a greater margin, while Symantec Norton Security Deluxe (for Mac) scored significantly lower than its Windows cousin. Ransomware Protection The scourge of ransomware is on the rise. While ransomware attacks are more common on Windows devices, Macs have suffered as well. Of course, any antivirus utility should handle ransomware just as it handles spyware, Trojans, viruses, and other malware types. But since the consequences of missing a ransomware attack are so great, some security products add components with the sole purpose of preventing ransomware attacks. I've observed a wide variety of ransomware protection techniques on Windows. These include blocking unauthorized access to user documents, detecting ransomware based on its activity, and recovering encrypted files from backup. Of the products listed here, Bitdefender and Trend Micro offer a ransomware component that blocks unauthorized modification of protected documents. As with Bitdefender's Windows edition, the Safe Files feature prevents all unauthorized access to your documents. On a Mac, it also protects your Time Machine backups. Trend Micro offers multiple layers of Windows ransomware protection. Folder Shield, which, like Safe Files, prevents unauthorized document access, is the only layer that made its way to the macOS edition. Sophos Home Premium includes the same CryptoGuard behvior-based ransomware protection found in its Windows equivalent. My Windows test sytsems are virtual machines, so I feel free to release real-world ransomware for testing. I just roll back the virtual machine to a clean snapshot after testing. I don't have the option to do that on my physical Mac testbed, so I just have to figure that since it worked on Windows, it probably works on macOS. Spyware Protection Any kind of malware problem is unpleasant, but spyware may be the most unnerving. Imagine some creeper secretly peeking at you through your Mac's webcam! Other types of spying include logging keystrokes to capture your passwords, sending Trojans to steal your personal data, and watching your online activities to build a profile. As with ransomware protection, I've observed more features specifically devoted to spyware protection on Windows-based security products than on the Mac, but a few products in this collection do pay special attention to spyware. Under Windows, Kaspersky's Safe Money feature opens sensitive sites in a secure browser that's hardened against outside interference. The Safe Money feature on the Mac doesn't do that, but it does check URLs to make sure you're on a legitimate secure site. Kaspersky offers an onscreen keyboard, so you can enter passwords with no chance of capture by a keylogger. Its webcam protection isn't as configurable as it is on Windows, but you can use it to disable your Mac's webcam whenever you're not using it. It even includes the ability to block advertisers and others from tracking your online activities. If spyware is your bugaboo, you'll like Kaspersky. Sophos Home Premium offers protection for the webcam and microphone that's more substantial than Kaspersky's. You get a notification any time an untrusted program attempts to access either; you can allow access or stop the program. There's also an option to whitelist a program, so you don't get a popup every time you use your off-brand video chat tool. Bonus Features Many antivirus tools on Windows pack in a ton of bonus features. That behavior seems less common on the macOS side. Even so, some vendors don't have a standalone Mac antivirus, opting instead to offer a full security suite as the baseline level of protection, and a few others include suite-like bonus features in the basic antivirus. A typical personal firewall component blocks attacks coming in from the internet and also manages network permissions for programs installed on your Mac. Intego, McAfee, and Norton each include a firewall component, while Kaspersky's Network Protection comes close. Parental control is another common suite component. With Sophos (free or premium) and Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac, a content filter can block access to websites matching unwanted categories. Kaspersky goes beyond that, with content filtering, internet time scheduling, private data protection, and even social media contact control. Protect Your Mac All of the products covered in this roundup earned certification from at least one independent testing lab; some managed two certifications. There really are no bad choices here, as far as basic antivirus protection goes. Even so, a couple of products stood out. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac not only achieved certification from both labs, it earned the maximum score in every test. Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac also earned high scores. It offers a full suite of Mac security tools, at the same price competitors charge for basic antivirus protection. These two are our Editors' Choice winners for Mac antivirus protection. Look over the reviews, pick the product that suits you best, and get your Mac protected. Once you've done that, you should also consider installing a Mac VPN. While an antivirus protects you, your devices, and your data locally, a VPN extends that protection to your online activities, protecting both your security and your privacy. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac Review MSRP: $39.99 at Bottom Line: Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac gets top marks from the independent labs and in our own hands-on testing. With its handy Autopilot mode, you can set it, forget it, and have confidence that you... Read Review Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac Review MSRP: $39.99 at Bottom Line: Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac excels in independent lab tests, and it goes far beyond mere antivirus, offering protection against network attacks, parental control, privacy protection,... Read Review Sophos Home Free (for Mac) Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: Sophos Home Free (for Mac) keeps configuration to a minimum and gets good scores both in independent lab tests and our own hands-on tests. It's a fine choice for protecting your Macs without... Read Review Sophos Home Premium (for Mac) Review MSRP: $50.00 at Bottom Line: Sophos Home Premium offers Mac antivirus protection at a very reasonable price, but the absence of many advanced features found in the Windows edition is disappointing. Read Review Avast Security (for Mac) Review MSRP: $0.00 at Bottom Line: Avast Security (for Mac) delivers effective malware protection along with unusual bonus features. Phishing protection only works well in Chrome and Firefox, but this free utility is still wo... Read Review ClamXav (for Mac) Review MSRP: $29.95 at Bottom Line: ClamXAV wraps the venerable, open source ClamAntiVirus engine in a straightforward user interface. It's lab-certified to protect your Mac, but doesn't go beyond the basics. Read Review Intego Mac Internet Security X9 Review MSRP: $49.99 at Bottom Line: Intego Mac Internet Security X9 scores well in lab tests using Mac malware, and it offers firewall protection. But it fails against Windows malware and lacks protection against dangerous URL... Read Review Malwarebytes for Mac Premium Review MSRP: $39.99 at Bottom Line: The premium edition of Malwarebytes for Mac scans for active malware and uses real-time detection to prevent infestation. It has a very good reputation, but hard data showing its effectivene... Read Review McAfee AntiVirus Plus (for Mac) Review MSRP: $59.99 at Bottom Line: McAfee's subscription gives you unlimited licenses to protect all your Macs with McAfee AntiVirus Plus, and your Windows, Android, and iOS devices, too. However, the SiteAdvisor website rati... Read Review

weiterlesen: RSS Quelle öffnen