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 should use VirusScan 9.0 on Mac OS X Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard systems instead of earlier versions such as VirusScan 8.5, 8.6, or 8.6.1. Software for older systems is still available.
You may download appropriate antivirus software from the links below:
| Operating system | Hardware requirements | Antivirus software |
|---|---|---|
| Mac OS X Tiger, version 10.4.6 or later Mac OS X Leopard, version 10.5 or later Mac OS X Snow Leopard, version 10.6 or later |
PowerPC or Intel processor, 1 GB of RAM, and 300 MB of free disk space | Download McAfee VirusScan 9.0 Universal Binary |
| Mac OS X Panther, version 10.3 through 10.3.9 | PowerPC processor | Learn about McAfee Virex for older systems |
If you want to verify checksums on the latest McAfee VirusScan download, it has the MD5 and SHA-1 hashes listed below:
- MD5: 1369bd1b78a074917749537d9ab6357d
- SHA1: 86dbaeb241dda2ab008f28cfc5762e6567d43060
Notes
VirusScan 9.0 is also known as “McAfee Security 1.0 Anti-Malware.”
VirusScan 9.0 requires Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later. It cannot be installed on Macs that are not running Tiger or Leopard or Snow Leopard.
Please make sure you run an eUpdate sequence periodically to keep the VirusScan software and its definitions up-to-date.
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 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.
System administrators should be aware that the installer will only install to the currently startup volume. Installations of VirusScan 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 and later installers additionally create 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 through means other than the supplied Apple Installer package should be aware of this behavior.
The two files are:
- /Library/Preferences/.com.Mcafee.VirusScan.install
- /Library/Preferences/com.Mcafee.VirusScan.plist
