News
Contributed by: Aurelija
Date: June 15, 2009
Last Wednesday researchers from SophosLabs discovered a Macintosh Worm with text inside it saying: "RESPECT about what are you talking about me (cybercriminal..) Don't say what you ignore!!!!!!!!". The worm is detected as OSX/Tored-Fam. It is a family of worms and 'wanna be' worms for Mac OS X. Members of OSX/Tored-Fam are written in RealBasic and contain strings such as "Infected and boted by OSX.Raedbot". The other malware, detected as OSX/Jahlav-C (also known as TrojanDownloader:MacOS/Jahlav), hides in a website for adults. This malware targets both Graham Cluely, senior technology consultant for Sophos, notes that OSX/Jahlav-C is an update to previous versions of Jahlav and will eventually run a Perl script that "uses http to communicate with a remote website and download code supplied by the attacker." Once the malware is downloaded on the computer, hackers can use it to take over the control of the system. Previous versions of Jahlav used to download fake anti-virus software. At present the situation has changed and the worm is not downloading any code. However, hackers can do other malicious things, including downloading of keyloggers, data mining or adding the Mac to a future botnet. Therefore, keep that in mind, especially with the rise of Iphone, the days of Mac not having malware are really over. If you thought that it's really safe to search for adult content on your Apple Mac, this article should have changed your opinion. Everybody should educate themselves to stay alert both when downloading unknown files, clicking on certain links and surfing for suspicious material. For now Mac users don't have the same need for anti-virus software but without a doubt that could change in the future! |
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Mac is not as invulnerable as you may think. Even though there are millions of viruses targeting the Windows operating system and approximately less than 70 affecting Apple computers, all Mac users should prick up their ears. Security experts have discovered two new malicious attacks targeted at Mac users. The first one is a new version of a worm and the other one is a Trojan hidden inside a website for adults.
the PC and the Mac. Visitors to the malicious porn site are told that they have to download an ActiveX component to view the videos. However, the code contains malware. Mac users get redirected to the pagemac.php page, which downloads a QuickTime.dmg file.
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User Comments
I've not seen any evidence that the other was ever found in the wild.
Your scare-mongering statements like "the days of Mac not having malware are really over" and "For now Mac users don't... need ... anti-virus software but without a doubt that could change in the future!" are hyperbole. By this logic, without a doubt someday Windows could be without malware, too! Should people give up their AV software now?
iAntiVirus reports 105 pieces of malware for Mac OS and OS X. OS X has been out for 8 years, and there are always a couple new pieces of malware found every quarter. These make news because they are unusual. Contrast that with the 20,000+ per day or 1,000,000+ total on Windows -- why not write an article like this every time a new Windows virus or trojan comes out?
Oh, I know. Because Windows vulnerabilities and malware aren't news.
yawn.