![]() Shortly afterwards, the Twitter account of celebrity blogger Guy Kawasaki had a malicious link posted onto it, claiming to point to a sex video of Gossip Girl actress Leighton Meester. In June, SophosLabs discovered a new version of the Tored email worm for Mac OS X, and hackers planted a version of the Jahlav Mac Trojan horse on a website posing as a portal for hardcore porn videos. In March, Sophos reported on how hackers were planting versions of the RSPlug Trojan horse on websites, posing as an HDTV program called MacCinema. In the same month, a new variant of the Trojan was distributed in a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop CS4. In January 2009, hackers began to distribute the OSX/iWorkS-A Trojan horse via BitTorrent inside pirated versions of Apple’s iWork ’09 software suite. Visiting the site produces a message saying that you don’t have the correct codec installed to watch the video – whereupon the site offers you an EXE if you run Windows, and a DMG (Disk Image) file if you are using an Apple Mac.Ĭontroversially, Apple issued a support advisory urging customers to run anti-virus software – but after media interest, rapidly deleted the page from their website. Similar to other malware campaigns, cybercriminals created a bogus webpage claiming to contain a video. ![]() In November, Sophos warned of the Jahlav Trojan. Troj/RKOSX-A was discovered – a Mac OS X tool to assist hackers create backdoor Trojans, which can give them access and control over your Apple Mac computer. In June, the OSX/Hovdy-A Trojan horse was discovered that could steal passwords from Mac OS X users, open the firewall to give access to hackers, and disable security settings. ![]() If accessed via an Apple Mac, surfers would be attacked by a piece of Macintosh scareware called MacSweeper.Ĭlose relatives of MacSweeper followed shortly afterwards, including Imunizator – another example of scareware for the Apple Mac, which claimed to find privacy issues on the user’s precious computer. You could measure how good your anti-virus software was by how quickly and seriously it responded to the macro virus threat.Ĭybercriminals targeted Mac and PC users in equal measure, by planting poisoned adverts on TV-related websites. DOC file could infect your computer, because the macro virus’s code was embedded within. Macro viruses were written in the easy-to-understand macro language that Microsoft included in its Office programs making it child’s play to create new variants.įurthermore, most people at the time considered documents to be non-dangerous, and were happy to receive them without thinking of the possible security implications. Word macro viruses turned the world of Mac *and* Windows malware on its head overnight. It infected both Macs and PCs running Microsoft Word.Ĭoncept was not written with malicious intent (aside from spreading, it just displayed a message box containing the number “1”) but thousands of macro viruses were to follow, many also affecting Microsoft Office for Mac. Microsoft accidentally shipped the first ever Word macro virus, Concept, on CD ROM. 2011 – MacDefender scareware and SEO poisoning.2010 – Backdoors, cross-platform attacks and free anti-virus.2009 – Malware in pirated software torrents, sex videos and a rudimentary virus protection from Apple.2007 – OpenOffice BadBunny and RSPlug financial malware.2006 – Leap, the first virus for Mac OS X.Hopefully this short history will go some way to present the facts, and encourage sensible debate.įrom the early 1980s, right up until the present day, here are some of the highlights in the history of Apple Mac malware. There are some who believe that the problem is overhyped (or even non-existent!) and others who believe that the malware problem on Macs is underestimated by the Apple-loving community. Since then there have been some significant developments, so here’s a revised and updated version.īefore we begin, it’s worth recognising that malware on the Mac is a subject which raises strong emotions. In late 2010, I wrote a short history of Apple Mac malware.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |