Site-wide links

Rochester Institute of Technology logo
Get Safe

Getting Secure

Home
Network Ready
Safety & Security
Up-to-Date
On Campus

Antivirus Software

McAfee VirusScan antivirus software for Macintosh computers is available at no additional cost to members of the RIT community, for both Institute and home use.

You may download appropriate antivirus software from the links below:

Notes

VirusScan 8.6.1 requires Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later, and cannot be installed on Macs that are not running Tiger or Leopard. We have no announcements on Snow Leopard compatibility as of this writing.

In our testing, installation of VirusScan 8.6.1 has not required a restart of your computer. Version 8.6.1 appears to correct kernel panic problems (errors requiring a forced reboot of your Mac) reported by some customers. Version 8.6.1 (October 2008) appears to correct further stability problems noted since the introduction of the original version 8.6.1.

Please make sure you run an eUpdate sequence periodically to keep the VirusScan software and its definitions up-to-date.

VirusScan 8.6.1 has the option to scan on "write" or "read and write." For the most performance (with a tradeoff in risk), choose the "write" option. The default when installed is to scan on "read and write." If you are not installing the product in Mac OS X's graphical interface, you will not see the choice between "write" and "read and write."

Malware warnings from VirusScan may be for suspicious files that do not directly impact Mac OS X systems. For broad protection, VirusScan shares antivirus definitions with McAfee's products on multiple platforms.

The VirusScan Reporter window may appear (and re-appear continuously) when viruses or other malware are detected. This has occurred most often in our testing when scanning the local mail cache stored by Apple Mail. We are investigating why VirusScan Reporter loops in this way, and hope to find a method to dismiss its warnings. If you see this problem, please contact us.

If you are distributing VirusScan 8.6 to managed computers, you should be aware that the product installer (not VirusScan itself) creates a group named "Virex" in the local Mac OS X directory service. If you are not running the installer on managed computers, we suggest creating this group on those computers before you install VirusScan. When doing this, you can choose the GID for the group; otherwise, it will typically assume GID 500. We have not confirmed this for version 8.6.1 yet.

System administrators should be aware that the installer will only install to the currently startup volume. Installations of VirusScan 8.6.1 on-disk are also not universal, even though the installer itself works on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. If you are deploying through means other than the downloadable installer, you will need consider packaging separately for each architecture.

The VirusScan 8.6 installer additionally creates two files that are required for the software to run. If they are not present, the application may act as a demo, and it can expire and no longer run. Systems administrators who are deploying VirusScan 8.6 through means other than the supplied Apple Installer package should be aware of this behavior. We have not confirmed this for version 8.6.1.

The two files are:

<- Back   -----   Next ->