# Solved: Can a Mac download a Windows virus and affect pcs over a network?



## Heddy123 (Mar 21, 2011)

Hi,
We bought a new imac not long ago. Before this, we had all Pcs. We still have all of our Pcs bar 1 on the home network.
As it is very uncommon that a mac will get a virus, If it downloads a virus, say a worm, that would affect a windows Pc but not a mac, could the worm affect all of the Pcs in the house? (we have 3 other working pcs, 2 of which are on the network.)

Also, Is there a great chance that I could download a virus for Mac?
THX
Heddy


----------



## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

Heddy123 said:


> If it downloads a virus, say a worm, that would affect a windows Pc but not a mac, could the worm affect all of the Pcs in the house? (we have 3 other working pcs, 2 of which are on the network.)


Highly unlikely.

The worm is unlikely to run on OS X (since written for Windows) and therefore do it's work.

Having said that its still possible to send viruses to Windows users via other methods. (email, file sharing, etc)

It doesn't hurt to run a virus scanner either way.
Windows machines on the Internet that get affected can ultimately cause us all issues (servers for example).


----------



## Heddy123 (Mar 21, 2011)

Cool, thanks mate.
I was a little concerned. The bloke at the Mac store said that there are so little Mac viruses out there that they don't even sell Virus scanners at that store.
THX
Heddy


----------

