Remember those old TV ads touting the “fact” that PCs get viruses and Macs don’t? At least they succeeded in hammering home the need for antivirus on a PC. But Macs don’t actually have the superpowered invulnerability promoted in those ads. Yes, they’re not as luscious a target for malware coders as PCs are, but macOS malware, including ransomware, exists. ESET Cyber Security (for Mac) combines Mac antivirus protection with a collection of useful bonus features, though admittedly, the bonus features don’t pack the punch of their Windows equivalents. It seems effective, though since it no longer has certification from independent labs, it’s hard to be sure.
How Much Does ESET Cyber Security for Mac Cost?
Like ESET NOD32 Antivirus, ESET Cyber Security costs $39.99 per year for one license, and $10 per year apiece for each additional license, up to five. In fact, your licenses for this product and NOD32 are interchangeable. If you find you have more licenses than you need, you could even install ESET on your Linux boxes, though Linux malware is scarce.
ESET’s pricing is in line with the competition. Bitdefender, Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, and Trend Micro are among the other macOS antivirus products that start at or near $39.99 per year. With McAfee you pay $59.99 per year, but that lets you install protection on all the devices in your household, whether they run Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android.
At the higher end, Airo, Clario, and Intego cost $99.99 per year for three licenses. With Norton, your $104.99 subscription gets you five cross-platform licenses, five no-limits VPN licenses, and 50GB of storage for your backups. In general, the higher-priced products come with significant bonus features.
ESET Cyber Security works with macOS versions back to 10.12 (Sierra), the same as Clario, Webroot, and others. Mac users typically stay up to date, but if you’re stuck with an antique macOS version, perhaps due to old hardware, you might consider ProtectWorks or ClamXAV (for Mac), both of which extend support all the way back to 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
Setup and Interface
Installation on the Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch I use for testing went quickly and didn’t require a restart. As with the Windows edition, you must decide during installation whether to participate in ESET’s LiveGrid online analysis system. You also must actively choose whether the antivirus should detect low-risk PUAs, or potentially unwanted applications. There’s no predefined setting. Smart users turn on PUA detection. After an initial antivirus signature update, your protection is fully active.
The Windows product features ESET’s cyborg mascot, but on a Mac, the spacious main window emphasizes two large monitor-shaped icons, representing computer security and security of your web and email connections. A green background with a checkmark means everything’s fine. If there’s a problem, the corresponding monitor turns red and the program displays an explanation, with a link to set things right. A simple menu down the left side gives you access to all the program’s features.
Scanning and Scheduling
ESET’s default Smart Scan checks locations where malware typically loiters; it also looks or malware active in memory. When we ran a Smart Scan after an in-depth scan, it took 24 minutes. Kaspersky managed a quick scan in a bit over two minutes, Norton 360 Deluxe (for Mac) in less than two minutes, and Webroot in just five seconds. Clearly Smart Scan isn’t directly comparable to the typical quick scan.
We also timed an in-depth scan, which presumably corresponds to the full scan in other products. When we last tested this product, the in-depth scan took so long we couldn’t properly measure it. This time, it came in at a reasonable 26 minutes, barely longer than the quick scan. The average full scan time among current products is 35 minutes.
The custom scan lets you choose specific drives or folders, with options to choose all removable drives, network drives, and so on. For some reason, there’s an option to scan without cleaning. Why would you do that?
Many Mac antivirus products skip the concept of scheduled scans, figuring that real-time protection should take care of any malware that turns up after the initial full scan. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, Kaspersky, and Sophos are among those that don’t bother with scheduling.
Those that do let you schedule scans typically offer a simple choice of daily, weekly, or monthly scans. ESET’s scheduler leaves all of these in the dust. Without any effort on your part, it schedules a startup file check after every user login and every signature update, and also schedules regular updates. But that’s just the start.
You can add your own scheduled scans and updates, and even use the scheduler to launch any arbitrary application. Tasks can run daily, weekly, or at an interval you define. You can also schedule scans to run every time specific events occur. These include computer startup, the first startup each day, new virus signatures, user login, and real-time detection of malware. It’s an elaborate system, yet it’s not difficult to use.
ESET is one of the many Mac antivirus programs that also aims to eliminate Windows malware. True, there’s no direct danger of infection by a Windows threat, but your Mac could become a carrier. For a simple test, we copied the current Windows malware sample set to a USB drive. ESET asked for permission to scan that drive when we mounted it, and the scan wiped out 70 percent of the samples, down from 93 percent in our previous review. In its own latest test, Webroot eliminated 100 percent of the samples. Sophos Home Premium (for Mac) came in second with 91 percent.
ClamXAV and ProtectWorks AntiVirus (for Mac) both jumped in to scan the USB drive immediately, without waiting for permission. Alas, their enthusiasm fell short as far as actual protection goes. Both detected just 43 percent of the Windows-based samples.
No Lab Test Results
For our Windows antivirus reviews, we supplement hands-on testing with test results from four independent testing labs. If the results don’t jibe, we give more weight to the lab results. For macOS antivirus, lab results are even more important, because our hands-on testing tools are strictly for Windows.
A few years ago, ESET had certification from AV-Test Institute and AV-Comparatives, the two labs extending their testing to macOS products at that time. Since then, ESET has vanished from the testing pool in both labs. It didn’t receive certification, not because of any fault in the product, but because it wasn’t tested.
To be fair, the labs frequently change their pools of products for testing. The first time we rounded up Mac antivirus product reviews, every product had at least one lab certification. As you can see in the chart above, barely a third of the products have current lab certification either from AV-Test or AV-Comparatives.
Fending Off Dangerous Web Pages
When it comes to protecting against attacks that come in via the web or email, ESET works behind the scenes, independent of any email client or browser. It sifts out any malware that enters the system via POP3 or IMAP email, and it replaces dangerous pages with a warning. You don’t need a browser extension the way you do with Avira, Bitdefender, McAfee AntiVirus Plus (for Mac), and many others.
On Windows systems, we challenge the antivirus with a selection of malware-hosting URLs collected in the past few days. Products get credit for blocking access to the URL or for detecting and eliminating the malware download. That test doesn’t translate well to the Mac, because all our sample URLs relate to Windows malware.
Phishing sites, on the other hand, aren’t tied to any specific platform. If you log on to a fraudulent copy of PayPal from the hidden browser in your Nintendo Switch, you’ve lost your account just as thoroughly as if you made that mistake on a Mac, or a Windows box. Sure, if you’re sharp you can spot the frauds yourself, but it’s nice to have some help from your antivirus.
The phishing protection test starts when we scour the web for newly reported possible frauds. We make sure to include plenty that haven’t yet been analyzed and blacklisted. Using a hand-coded test utility, we simultaneously launch these URLs in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, relying on each browser’s built-in phishing protection. For a Windows-based test we use that same utility to test the antivirus; on the Mac, it’s a matter of copy/pasting URLs into the browser.
ESET tanked this test. Last time around it detected 73 percent of verified fraudulent pages, which is poor. This time that number sank to a dismal 27 percent, the lowest among current macOS antivirus products. ESET’s Windows-centered antivirus managed 93 percent, so clearly the technology to do better is available. Our ESET contact explained that “we have an issue with some scanning related to some https links,” and that the team is working on a fix.
The current top phishing fighter among macOS antivirus products is Bitdefender, with 99 percent detection. McAfee, with 98 percent comes next, and Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (for Mac) managed 97 percent. Until ESET fixes the Mac-specific problem, you’re better off relying on the phishing protection built into your browser.
Bonus Features
Security companies often offer Windows products in three tiers: basic antivirus, security suite, and feature-packed security mega-suite. However, it’s not uncommon for them to pile on so many bonus features in the antivirus that you’d think it’s a suite itself. In the Mac realm, that pattern doesn’t generally apply. Most companies just offer an antivirus, without the cornucopia of bonus features. That said, ESET does offer more extras than many.
I should point out that ESET does publish an enhanced edition called ESET Cyber Security Pro. For $10 more per year, this edition adds firewall and parental control, making it a kind of suite. However, in the Mac realm most users are satisfied with antivirus protection, plus whatever bonuses the antivirus includes.
On Windows, NOD32 antivirus includes a device control system more elaborate than similar features that other companies reserve for their top-tier suites. You can create detailed permission rules for many types of devices, among them card readers, imaging devices, USB drives, and Bluetooth devices. You could, for example, ban removable drives in general, but make exceptions for devices you’ve verified as safe, or allow yourself permissions not granted to other users.
ESET’s Mac equivalent of Device Control is much cruder, simply offering removable media blocking. When you enable it, you can block the use of five media types: CD-ROM, Firewire (remember Firewire?), USB, iOS, and Other. Blocking is all-or-nothing for each media type. If you want to connect, say, a USB drive, you must temporarily disable blocking of all USB drives.
A page titled Tools includes the option to display a list of running processes. As with the similar Windows feature, it draws on ESET’s LiveGrid database to show the risk level and number of users for each process, as well as how long ago ESET first detected the process. From the Tools page, you can access the scheduler, view log files, check protection statistics, and examine quarantined threats. Finally, there’s an option to send a wonky file to ESET’s researchers for evaluation.
On the Help tab, there’s a direct link to open a help ticket, with the option to paste in details about your hardware, operating system, and ESET installation. You can also open the extensive help system, or search the knowledge base.
A Decent But Uncertified Antivirus
In the past, two independent testing labs have certified ESET Cyber Security (for Mac) as a capable Mac antivirus. Chances are good that it’s just as effective as ever, but those labs didn’t include ESET in their latest tests, so it doesn’t have current certifications. Its help system goes beyond most competitors, and its collection of bonus features includes a simple form of device control, but it tanked our hands-on phishing protection test, lagging way behind its own Windows version.
You can get good antivirus protection for your Mac from ESET, but Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac and Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac remain our Editors’ Choice products in this realm, and both of these have current lab certifications.
