Custom Scan - External drives - Mac Edition

[KyleGP]

Hi there,

Is there any ability coming or presently in Malwarebytes for MAC that allows custom scanning of other disks, such as an external drive or other internal drive?

This would benefit greatly. Consider it feedback if it's not there!

[treed]

Not at this time, no. Currently, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac only scans for threats installed on the current system.

[KyleGP]

Sad to see no change since the time I posted this.

As a technician, I would gladly pay for a license in which I could use Malwarebytes to scan other volumes.

Has there been any further consideration on the matter?

[RandalPhred]

The program used to have this functionality. After they bought AdwareMedic and converted it to MBytes, it continued to have the custom scan functionality. It was only when it was updated to need an installer that they took this option away.

I'm rather disappointed with the program overall these days.

Clunky, slow, and it should NOT require an installation. 

[treed]

On 2/23/2018 at 7:06 PM, RandalPhred said:

The program used to have this functionality. After they bought AdwareMedic and converted it to MBytes, it continued to have the custom scan functionality. It was only when it was updated to need an installer that they took this option away.

That is actually not at all true. Neither AdwareMedic nor any version of Malwarebytes for Mac has ever had the capability to scan anything other than the current system volume.

[thedjphenomenon]

As opposed to just correcting the last user, what about his very valid point that MWB has made no update to include a custom scan for Mac as is readily available in Windows? It's been 8 months since this was first brought up and parity among operating systems should be a basic goal given the hard sell of MWB for Mac.  I find the inability to scan a peripheral that's connected to the source to be an unacceptable vulnerability and will be leaving this feedback in my review of MWB for Mac if this is a permanent product flaw.  Look forward to response.

[MattM]

As a Mac user who frequently works with PC users in third-world countries all over Asia who almost always are infected with something, I would very much appreciate the ability to scan removable and external drives on Mac. Parity among operating systems is, in my mind, a given. I actually didn't know I couldn't search removable drives until I found this forum, and now I'm regretting paying for premium since I don't get this feature on my Mac like I thought I did.

[alvarnell]

As a Mac user for over twenty years and having encountered hundreds of external drives in that time, I have never ever found Mac malware on any except backup drives which cannot be cleaned without corrupting the backup, so such capability ranks as the lowest priority from my point of view.

[MattM]

19 minutes ago, alvarnell said:

As a Mac user for over twenty years and having encountered hundreds of external drives in that time, I have never ever found Mac malware on any except backup drives which cannot be cleaned without corrupting the backup, so such capability ranks as the lowest priority from my point of view.

Point taken and I agree; however I appreciate being able to clean the disk I encounter to prevent the further spread of PC malware as well, even though I'm not concerned about my Mac itself. Most of these places still rely on USB thumb drives and such for file storage and transfer, and viruses are rampant. It's nice to clean the drives I encounter, at the very least so I don't continue passing along the PC malware to the next person.

[alvarnell]

But Malwarebytes for Mac is unable to check for any Windows malware currently and I know of no efforts to give it such capability, so it wouldn't be of any use under the circumstances you outlined. The same applies to the majority of anti-malware scanners designed for Mac use.

[MattM]

1 hour ago, alvarnell said:

But Malwarebytes for Mac is unable to check for any Windows malware currently and I know of no efforts to give it such capability, so it wouldn't be of any use under the circumstances you outlined. The same applies to the majority of anti-malware scanners designed for Mac use.

I used to use Sophos for Mac and it was able to scan external drives for both Mac and PC malware and viruses. I don't have much experience with other Mac antivirus/malware software. It's fine as is and I'm pleased with how well this software works, but I wish I had known of these limitations beforehand. I should have done more reading first.

Edited May 2, 2018 by MattM

[alvarnell]

By coincidence, I had a discussion with a couple of other Mac colleagues about the need to check for Windows malware to prevent spreading to PC users. Our conclusion was that whereas this sounds like a nice idea from a community standpoint, PC users will almost always have their own anti-malware software (at least the definitely should) which would almost certainly catch any Windows infections immediately should you pass them on, and it's probably not worth the cost. So that might make you an untrusted source as far as your PC friends are concerned, but would doubtfully cause anybody any harm.

Adding an order of magnitude of Windows signatures to Malwarebytes would cancel out it's primary advantage of being one of the fastest Mac anti-malware package available. Imagine, if you will, comparing every Mac file you scan with millions of Windows only patterns. Practically all the files you have on your computer are Mac only, so why would you want to check each one of them to see if it had a not-possible Windows infection and waste all that time and CPU cycles?

I too have been using a cross-platform Anti-Malware software for many years and scanning my entire drive takes the better part of a day, during which time I can't be doing much of anything else. Fortunately, it's real-time protection isn't noticeable or I certainly would have abandoned it by now. Malwarebytes and one other product I'm aware of are what I use for a quick check and the other when I don't need the computer and want to be doubly sure nothing I don't know about snuck in while I wasn't looking (which, by the way, has never happened).

[CJ2]

Yeah, I could really use this too. 

I prefer Malwarebytes, but run Avast on the external drives just to have something that will check them.