Mar 25
Mac OS X Trojan Seen in the Wild
Posted in: Mac OS X by Damien Barrett Add comments
Sophos has captured video of a fairly legitimate-looking website that’s nothing more than a front that tries to get you to install a Mac OS X trojan horse. Normally, I wouldn’t highlight the OMG! nature of such a thing, but this is truly newsworthy. Trojan writers are finally targeting Mac OS X, probably because the marketshare has been steadily increasing. It should be noted that this is not a virus and that Mac OS X remains fairly innoculated from the scourge of viruses and worms like Conficker that’s about to make a splash on April 1.
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March 25th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Sophos probably commissioned the damn thing to be made.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:57 am
It’s apparent that for any AV maker on the Mac to make *any* sales, they need to start a virus rumour.
March 25th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Mac OS X trojans have been in the wild for over a year now (late 2007). Most often as video sites (pr0n) that attempt to get you to load a “codec.” Seriously, this is not news.
March 25th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
As Zorak said, trojans for OS X, while rare, are not unheard of. In fact, not too long ago there was a bunch of attention given to one that masqueraded as a cracked copy of iWork ‘09 and spread itself through BitTorrenters.
March 25th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Kevin and Zorak: Did I somehow imply that Mac OS X trojans are nonexistent? I know about the fake iLife 09 one and even about the first version of this trojan that was on some porn sites a year ago. My point (and concern) is that this is the first time the trojan writers have bothered to masquerade their work as a legitimate site. I certainly have Mac-using clients that would be fooled by this. As such, I’ve been setting up the least-savvy of them as standard users so they don’t have the ability to inadvertently install malware or a trojan.