It has been widely believed by many that Macs are more secure than Windows PCs and are less likely to become infected by a virus. It is more accurately believed by fewer people that it is purely a matter of numbers, and virus writers target Windows PCs because there are so many more of them.
There have been more and more instances of a virus being found on a Mac, and now according to Ivan Sorokin, a malware analyst at Dr. Web a botnet named ‘Flashback’ is infecting over 600’000 Macs, of which 247 are reportedly in Cupertino – presumably a reference to Apple headquarters.
The Flashback trojan first surfaced around October 2011 and the most recent version, which can become installed if you visit a compromised or malicious webpage, exploits a Java vulnerability which has been subsequently patched by Oracle.
If you’re running a Mac and haven’t applied the patch, go grab it now, and if you think your machine may be infected, F-Secure has instructions on how to use the Terminal to find out.
About Rob Gordon
This post was written by Rob Gordon, an IT geek, gadget lover and blogger. Rob has been using the internets since 1994 when the only streaming video was that coffee pot in Cambridge (rip).... Follow Rob on Twitter - @robgordon
- Web |
- More Posts (547)
Posted in 
Tags: 
[...] firm Intego has announced that it has discovered a new variant of the Flashback malware called Flashback.S that continues to use a Java vulnerability Apple previously patched. No [...]