Mac Trojan Set Loose—More to Come?
Found this this afternoon in an email newletter I get.
Mac Trojan Set Loose—More to Come?
The first malicious Trojan for Mac OS X has been found in the wild, leading some to claim the platform may be on the verge of increased attention from virus writer…..
Bummer, well it’s been great while it lasted, this virtual immunity from trojan horses, worms and virus trouble that all of Mac users have had for so long. I guess we had to expect that this kind of thing was going to come some day.
Just wanted to post this since it’s very easy for us Mac users to ignore, forget about, and dismiss stuff like this since it is so rare but it’s still important for us to still stay awake and beaware of this kind of stuff.
Still though, ya gotta say Macs are just great.
Replies
I love my iMac, what should I be looking out for?
I often get email alerts from my ISP that they stripped them out, but I alwys figured it more for the PC users.
Well there is still really nothing for MacUsers to really worry about. In the case of this trojan horse a trojan horse is not the same thing as a virus) you'd have to go to the website they mentioned and conscientiously commit to downloading the program (which purports itself to be the new MS Office 2004 for Mac) and open and run it. I think what the industry experts are saying is don't do anything stupid like that and the article mentioned "This is an example of the perils of seeking illegal software." If you want the new version of MS Office for the Mac you get it from MS not some obscure fringe website.
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We've never been imune, just not a target, and just not quite as easy to write malicious code for.
Actually, in many ways OS9 was a more secure OS than OSX.
That said, Apple has made it incredibly easy to update your system when a hole is found. A lot easier than Microsoft's solution.
DARREL510 "We've never been imune, just not a target, and just not quite as easy to write malicious code for."
Well that so of what I phrased it "virtual immunity". What makes you say OS9 would be more secure than OSX? Because it user base is continuing to shrink or were you thinking something about it's architecture?
"That said, Apple has made it incredibly easy to update your system when a hole is found. "
That is soooo very true and when even just a potential security issues pops up they are very quick with updates that address the issue.
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"A Mac OS X proof of concept trojan has been found showing the potential of trojans in Mac OS X. The proof of concept did not harm anything it was dubbed MP3Concept or MP3Virus.gen and added into the anti-virus definitions for future protection of this style. This trojan contains the file extension of .mp3 although it is not, the icon itself is hardcoded into the trojan and not picked up based on file creator associations. The file itself is a Carbon (CFM) application with the file type of APPL. iTunes should not be able to execute a trojan or virus, and this file would only be able to run if double clicked on to execute it. It does have potential for manipulation to cause harm but at its current state did not, it was a benign trojan proof of concept code.
Many news media sources are reporting this finding to be destructive as if it were a trojan or virus to cause harm. Again it was proof of concept showing the ability allowing the anti-virus companies to have a heads up and protect against future manipulations of the code."
from http://www.securemac.com/
"What makes you say OS9 would be more secure than OSX? Because it user base is continuing to shrink or were you thinking something about it's architecture?"
It's architecture. Security-wise, it was fairly rock-solid...especially with networking.
My favorite recent story...I was updating my Mac to Panther, and my wife's laptop to XP.
Panther...45 minutes to install. Two sets of updates. One reboot. About an hour of my time total.
XP...about an hour to install. TWENTY SIX critical updates. Reboot each time. About 3.5 hours to install. Install firewall. Install adaware. Install virus protection...ugh... ;o)