Windows Virus on Boot Camp affect Mac?

[Josh Kahane]

Hi

I currently have windows XP installed on a Bootcamp partition. If I was to get a virus on the windows partition would it affect my mac partition (the whole HD)? Or would it only affect the windows partition? Thanks.

 

[singhy44]

No your Mac partition should be ok. I had a similar situation, where I got a virus on Vista. So I removed the partition, which was a bad idea, so I'm in the process of installing Windows 7.

 

[MacDawg]

Correct...

It will not affect your OS X partition

But your Windows partition is a normal Windows set up and should be treated as such... and protected with AV.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[Josh Kahane]

Ok thanks alot guys really helpful, one thing, how did you get he windows 7 beta? I didnt think it was available yet.

 

[Carrot007]

Well that is not 100% correct.

A windows virus on boot camp partition could. (and COULD is the imprtant but here)

1. In thoery destroy the partition table and render everything on the HD unusable, includnig the MAC side of things.

This is however unlikley as old fashioned malicious virus's are not really abundant these days, they are more liekly to sit quiet and steal your data, try to infect others etc.

Some however are known to encrypt your data and demans payment to return it. Whioch brings me to.

2. It you have your mac partition mounted read/write in windows using one of the available tools that do this then your mac drive is as vunarable to things as your windows drive is.

Though as long as you are behind a hardware firewall (in your router) and use antoviries like avast or avg (both have free versions) and avoid the dodgy sites that just want to infect you then you should be fine.