Tag Archives: Flashback

The Apple Mac–Flashback Trojan could have netted $10k per day for it’s creators.

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Mac MalwareThe Flashback Trojan which has been one of the most talked about pieces of malware which has affected Apple’s OSX  Operating System, may have for the creators of this malware, netted them $10K per day, according to a report from security and anti-virus company Symantec.

“We’ve been busy in the labs reverse engineering the various components of OSX.Flashback.K to determine the true motivation behind the malware. Let’s take a look at this Mac Trojan in more detail.

The Infection
It’s now well-known that the latest OSX.Flashback.K variant was being distributed using the Oracle Java SE Remote Java Runtime Environment Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2012-0507), which  was patched by Oracle in February. Unfortunately for Mac users, there was a large window of exposure since Apple’s patch for this vulnerability was not available for six weeks.

Ad-clicking Trojans are nothing new and in an analysis of W32.Xpaj.B last August a botnet measuring in the region of 25,000 infections could generate the author up to $450 per day. Considering the Flashback Trojan measures in the hundreds of thousands, this figure could sharply rise to the order of $10000 per day.”

Read the full article at Symantec Security Blog HERE

Apple developing a fix tool for the Flashback Trojan

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Mac MalwareAs I reported last week Apple OSX and likely more than 600K users have been affected by a Trojan (a Trojan is a form of Malware). Apple are working on a fix tool to allow users to remove this Trojan.

“Apple has said it is developing a tool to “detect and remove” a Trojan that is said to have infected more than half a million Mac computers.

It said it is working with internet service providers (ISPs) to disrupt the command network being used by hackers to exploit the malware.

In a message posted on Apple’s website’s support section, the company said it had fixed a “Java security flaw for systems running OS X v10.7 and Mac OS X v10.6″.

It suggested users of Macs running earlier versions of its system software should disable Java in their web browser preferences.”

While this is a great to hear from Apple, it now shows something that has long been known in tech circles that Apple and in some respect neither is Linux Operating Systems (OS) immune from malware that has plagued Microsoft Windows for many years, these other OS’s are becoming popular now so malware writers are targeting them.

In part its due to Microsoft’s newer Windows versions (Windows 7 and 8) as well as Internet Explorer becoming more secure, they are by no means immune as in the main its the user that is the major cause of malware on a PC.

Read full article at BBC Technology News HERE

UPDATE 13/04/2012

The fix is available now and KB Article HERE and download HERE