I’ve been pointing out for years that Mac’s are not immune to virus and malware attacks. Rather, Mac users have been enjoying “security through obscurity”.

There have long been “proof-of-concept” viruses created for Macs by hackers who, rather than wanting to do harm, simply wanted to show that such was possible. Similarly, hackers have broken into Macs simply to prove that it was easy to do so.

If the point of a virus is to self-propagate and infect as many machines as possible, and while Macs have traditionally comprised less than 4% of the market share of personal computers, why would virus creators target Macs?

Ironically, the fact that there have been relatively no viruses in the wild that affect Macs has been one of the selling advantages that have helped drive up the sale of Mac computers in recent years.

I’ve been wondering how long it will take for the Mac platform to reach critical mass and attract the lure of malicious programmers. Apparently, the time is sooner rather than later.

Thankfully, Apple are taking steps to address the growing threats to Macs. They’ve quietly introduced rudimentary malware scanning in Snow Leopard, and continue to add virus signatures for new threats as they emerge. And there are already a number of third-party antivirus programs for the Mac by companies such as Symantec, Sophos and Intego.

No need to panic. If you’re running Snow Leopard, simply hit your Software Update utility. If you’re running an older version of OS X, sorry, I’m not sure if Apple have made malware scanning available to your system yet.

Here’s a problem I’ve encountered many times after cleaning up virus/ malware infestations on my client’s computers.

The Problem:

When you try to open EXE files, you may get errors messages like: “Access Denied”, “Runtime error” etc.

The Fix:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. Type “command.com” , and then press Enter. (A DOS window opens).
3. Type the following, pressing Enter after typing each one.:
cd\
cd \windows
regedit.exe regedit.com
start regedit.com"4. Navigate to and select the key:
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command
5. In the right pane, double-click the (Default) value.
6. Delete the current value data, and then type:
"%1" %*   Tip: Type the characters: quote-percent-one-quote-space-percent-asterisk.
7. Close Regedit utility.

If you are trying to track down why your computer is running so slooowwwly, try using this simple DOS command from Digital Inspiration to uncover a possible problem:

* Type cmd in your Windows Run box.
* Type “netstat -b 5 > activity.txt” and press enter.
* After say 2 minutes, press Ctrl+C.
* Type “activity.txt” on the command line to open the log file in notepad (or your default text editor)

This .txt file will have a record of everything that has made an Internet connection in the last couple of minutes; you can then check your task manager to find out where it is and take care of it.