The Top 10 Mac Viruses

The Mac is most powerful, while it seems to technically and physically repel viruses, malware, trojans, rootkits, etc … ironically it does seem to affect those of the flesh & bone variety who are furthest away from a Mac … especially those carrying a 10-foot pole and who have never actually touched a Mac in 10 years – they seem to be incapacitated the most with a variety of virus-like ailments. Hopefully, this will serve as a guide to help the less fortunate seek immediate medical care or better yet, a lifestyle change by moving much, much closer to a Mac.

Top 10 Mac Viruses

10) THE DISBELIEF VIRUS. Affects certain percentage of population. The disbelief that after 6 years of an operating system and with 30 million users, they cannot fathom, conceive that even in their wildest imagination doped up on cough syrup, malaria and Red Bull … they simply cannot believe that in our hostile malware, virus, trojan, spyware, rootkit & whatever world, there exists an oasis and calm in the maelstrom. The results of this virus are very sad indeed. That person is reduced to hysterical, mythical sightings of alleged virus only to be met with shaking of the head and the realization that they were wrong for the 2,200 days in a row …

Cure: Sadly un-curable – as a result - a deprived life spent searching Siberia websites for the remote possibility of something … anything to vindicate their now-empty existence.

9) THE INVISIBLE WORM TROJAN. It’s got to be on here. Nobody can load 200 apps, thousands of photos of Kathy Bates and not have something working behind the scenes – it can’t just work. I know it’s here. Sure, it’s just fooling me into surfing, filling out my address book, making DVD’s and generally lulling me into a false sense of security … It’s on HEREEEEE … what’s that? What’s that??!!! Throw it away! It won’t LET ME! I can randomly throw anything away on Windows – that proves invisible forces are at work!

Cure: Best cure. Buy 365 Macs and randomly pick one – they’ll never know which one you’re using today.

9) THE FROZEN-TO-DEATH VIRUS. It starts simple enough. It can’t be this invulnerable. I’ll spend all my time at survey-for-dinner-at-olivegarden.com – surely, I will get some virus … not even a popup. These must be some stealth maneuver to lure me in … okay, I’ll turn off my firewall. Nothing wrong – what is wrong with this crazy OS?! Maybe I just need to buy some routers from a Central European country? That should do the trick. Still nothing wrong – what am I doing wrong?! Normally, I turn on a computer and while I’m downloading patches, it all goes to pot. okay, the final straw. I’ll sign up for AOL … man, still nothing wrong … okay, if I get in my car naked and drive around to unsecured WiFi spots … man, it’s cold here in Minneapolis in January – my Toshiba used to keep my legs nice and toasty … I’m getting col

Cure: Go immediately to a room full of Dell servers. Hug the machines. Get out after 30 seconds, any more heat and your skin will blister.

8) THE I-BAIL-A-HACKER OUT OF PRISON VIRUS. I bail what’s-his-name out of prison and place him in front of my Mac. I have carved the words ROOT LOGIN password on my desk … but just to be safe, I whisper it to him and point out the post-it pasted on my monitor. I make a turkey sandwich, take 5 Tylenol Cold tabs and drink a bottle of Nyquil. I get out my electric blanket and take a short rest. OH MY GOD! After I wake up 3 days later, my machine is acting DIFFERENT. Call Norton! Call those two guys. Virus alert! Virus alert! See, people can do destructive things to your Mac!v
Cure: Coffee, Gingko & Your Mac privileges stripped away.

7) THE EVERYTHING ON THE DESKTOP VIRUS. What are folders? I just keep all 60,000 files on my desktop. My 512MB RAM eMac seems to be running slow – VIRUS! VIRUS! VIRUS!

Cure: Mac Leopard. You can create one giant 13,000 by 13,000 pixel folder for your desktop.

6) MY MATH IS NOT SO GOOD VIRUS. Geniuses who barely graduated high school math but are convinced that to get any virus going, the answer can only be 500 million (the @number of PC’s out there). Anything less means no virus … never mind that the answer is really just three machines. One guy to write it, one guy to pass it along and the infected person. The virus/trojan that infected only about 50,000 Windows servers? Doesn’t count? Or does it only count when you say it counts? That there’s no incentive at all for anyone to infect 100 Linux machines or 50 Macs? None at all? So, unless 100% of the tens of millions of Macs out there are infected, you consider the number of infected machines to be too small to be counted?

Cure: Learn math word problem.

5) NO ONE IS SMARTER THAN ME VIRUS. If my PC has 114,000 malware, virus and trojans and you have zero. Clearly there is something wrong with your setup. There is no way you are smarter than me. I picked the best – a PC because it’s what Steve Ballmer uses and it’s the most popular! It’s even the most popular pirated OS … you are weird for being different and in the minority. (same breath) I would never buy an ipod because I would never buy anything that’s popular and #1 in market share – you’re a sheep and a sucker.

Cure: Bed rest & a Mac.

4) I POINT THINGS OUT, THAT’S WHO I AM VIRUS. You’re 6 years old, it’s 1972 and a little girl moves next door to you. You point to her and say – “You have a mole, you’re ugly! No one will like you ever” In the ensuing years, you haven’t changed. “These new fangled video games systems, eventually they’ll replace them with newer and better ones!” or “Why talk to other people? They’ll just disagree with you!” Eventually you are always right and first! REMEMBER, I WAS THE FIRST! I said it first! “Macs, you could get a virus – you just watch … yea, well, maybe not today or tomorrow but come back Monday … I said it first. I’ll be a Monday or another day ending in Y, just you see, I’m right, I’m always right.”

BTW, that little girl – Cindy Crawford … yea, focus on the mole. That was wise then … and what was I saying?

Cure: Round the clock therapy.

3) I USED TO BE THE GARDENING WRITER, NOW I AM THE TECH GUY VIRUS. When I figured out that the copier wasn’t working because the plug was kicked loose and I’m the only guy under the age of 55, I was dubbed the newsroom tech writer so here I am. Let me read those press releases from Norton, MacAfee and those “security sites.” Hey, if they say it’s dangerous, it’s must be – it’s not like they have a hidden agenda and why bother talking to anyone else, I’ve already written my headline, a quote contradicting that would just mess things up … besides, my eMachines PC is full of viruses – what’s true of one thing is always true of anything else forever … I’m pretty sure that’s the first motto of journalism.

Cure: Go back to gardening – please make your own fertilizer joke here.

2) THE QUARTERLY SALES BLUES VIRUS. A sort of run down feeling – that yea, yea, you got the guys in accounting and logistics all sewn up – they buy your product in truckloads but it’s just not very sexy. There is this other growing crowd that’s the envy of everyone but they don’t want anything to do with you. They’ll barely talk to you. You tried all the things. You tried being nice. You tried being needy (“Norton is supposed to erase all your files – Restore, erase, they’re just words. Of course we stand by our products, we’ll happily send you another disc if you return this one along with a $19.99 restocking fee – your hard drive? Does it say Norton on it? Nope, not ours – try reformatting it”). Even people in Iowa need tsunami insurance. Everyone could use more insurance. Gardening writers read our faxes – why won’t you? Oh yea, maybe we’ll just make Quicken as crappy as possible … not sure how that will win over converts but we’ve tried nearly everything else we can think of … let’s try panic. What’s after panic?

Cure: Make less crappy software? I can see by the blank look you have no concept …

2a) IT’S ALIVE, IT’S ALIVE, I TELL YOU IT WAS ALIVE VIRUS – a corollary to Virus #2. If a virus can stay coherent as a running series of code in a lab with one Mac machine and logged in as root and all defenses down – like man-made elements alive for .0000000000000000001 second under perfect conditions (ie: pressurize room to being on the Sun), it’s a virus! Get the PR boys on alert. Set fax machines to auto loop and blast this tidbit of info out as a WHITE PAPER – that’ll get everyone to stand up & take notice. Just make sure it’s not a day Monster Cable isn’t releasing a new color S-video cable, we wouldn’t want to be upstaged.

Cure: .0000000000000000001 burst of anything is not really something to crow about. Maybe some tantric exercises?

1) THE GRAY CLOUD BAD OUTLOOK VIRUS. aka: the Eeyore Virus … amusing when you’re a slow talking donkey (and you’re 6 years old) are you an animated donkey? What does it matter if you got the best value buy, the best OS and a great looking computer? Someday – soon – next year, next 5 years, something could possibly infect it – and then what will you do? I mean, holy crap, you’ll have to go to the Apple store and spend – God knows how much - $29? $39 dollars to buy virus-eradicating software – my God, what next? How many tens of dollars will you have to pony up to eradicate that one file – and what if it spreads to a second file? You might have to get an updated virus file? That might take .5 seconds – or if your cable modem is slow that day - .8 seconds – who has that much time – I mean, it’s not like you had 2,200 carefree days of usage … well, maybe for you but I was worried day and night and the following 2,200 days and nights that you could possibly, maybe, could happen – get a virus. Why would you put up with such a thing?!!

Cure: Wake up. You are not an animated donkey – you are a real annoying talking a**.