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The only defense against "social engineering" attacks on a Mac is identical to the defense on Windows -- a combination of fierce skepticism and the ability to resist temptation. Curiosity killed the cat, I've heard...

. . . and my experience is that "fierce skepticism" is a lot easier for me to bring to the Unix box than to the Windows^TM one.

Some Windows users posting here seem to take offense at my attitude of "fierce skepticism" related to OS X virus warnings. As far as I'm concerned that's their problem, tho . . .

> . . . and my experience is that "fierce skepticism" is a lot easier for me to bring to the Unix box than to the WindowsTM one.

Maybe that's because Windows is now so full of warnings... granted that Win7 is a LOT better than Vista, which was a bad joke.

I run one of my Win7 boxes with the default UAC (User Account Control) setting, and another with it somewhat looser (it's a crashbox for debugging new software, nothing much to lose). The "default" UAC setting quickly taught me that most users will get so jaded and bored "clicking through" the warnings, that they might as well just turn the warnings off entirely.

> Some Windows users posting here seem to take offense at my attitude of "fierce skepticism" related to OS X virus warnings. As far as I'm concerned that's their problem, tho . . .

There simply aren't any OS-X viruses in the wild, so the warnings are just BS at present. (Trojans, yes, because they are attacks on the USER not the OS.)

Frankly, at this point, I don't expect real OS-X viruses to show up in great numbers in the future either, because the handhelds running iOS and Android will be a much more useful platform for the virus writers. I am slowly coming to the opinion that Mac OS-X may well maintain it's "clean image" forever, simply because during the decade when it became the premier consumer OS, and thus would have been a target, it was too hard to breach; and now the handhelds are presenting a more attractive and numerous target.

Think about it -- why would a virus writer concentrate their effort these days on Mac OS-X? Much more useful to get something working for Android or iOS. Or the old standby, Windows, though that, too, is becoming harder and harder to breach. A fully patched, up-to-date Win7 system is about as solid as OS-X, which is a great achievement for Microsoft. A decade too late, but nonetheless a great accomplishment, and much appreciated by those of us who work with and live with Windows every day.