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Mac botnet grows to 600,000, 274 of them in Cupertino

Further disproving the "Macs don't get viruses" meme, a Russian security firm says a Trojan horse is rapidly infecting vulnerable Macs.
By Ed Oswald
A MacBook Pro, with a Trojan

Russian security firm Dr Web warns that at least 600,000 Macs are infected and part of a growing botnet, further disputing the notion that Mac OS X is free of malware. 76% of these Macs are located in the US and Canada, with another 13% in the UK.

Possibly more embarrassing for Apple is the fact that 274 infected computers(Opens in a new window) are located in Cupertino, California, which may indicate Macs belonging to Apple employees or even on the company's campus might be infected. Mac users are advised to ensure their Macs are up-to-date(Opens in a new window) to prevent infection, and some four million compromised web pages are believed to exist, including portions of DLink's website, Dr Web claims.

The Flashback Trojan is the culprit here, but is nothing new. The Trojan first appeared disguised as a Flash installer(Opens in a new window) last September, and disabled Mac OS X's built in malware protections. This version makes its way into Macs through a Java vulnerability, and is loaded onto unpatched Macs without interaction from the user.

Apple could have prevented this from becoming a major issue, but for some reason it didn't distribute the patch until this week (Oracle issued a fix in February). The update, "Java for OS X 2012-001," is now available through Software Update. The description says it "delivers improved compatibility, security, and reliability by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_31," which is the Java version that closes the hole.

Clean MacIf you want to check if your Mac is infected, F-Secure has a fairly easy-to-follow guide(Opens in a new window). If your system is clean, your results will look something like the picture on the right.

Back to the sneakiness of Flashback: Apple enthusiasts are quick to point out malware doesn't do well on Mac because the operating system always asks for a password before installing software. Here there is no such warning, which may signal a new front in Mac malware, where hackers are spending the time figuring out ways to get around Apple's security protections.

Before, when Mac market share was in the pits, this was a lot of work for little benefit. That changed with the uptick in popularity of Apple -- now Macs are a much more attractive target. Expect a lot more of this in the future, and probably the same excuses from the Apple faithful on why there's nothing wrong.

In the meantime, head over to Software Update and apply that patch.

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Mac Os X Security Operating Systems Flashback Malware

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