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Internet & Technology About the author of the history Graham Cluley
is senior technology consultant at Sophos. In both 2009 and
2010, the readers of Computer Weekly voted him security
blogger of the year and he pipped Stephen Fry to the title
of "Twitter user of the year" too. His awards cabinet
bulging, he was voted "Best Security Blogger" by the readers
of SC Magazine in 2011.
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Introduction: Last week we ran into a nasty virus on a friend's PC. It most likely came through email masquerading as a joke or something. Keep in mind that clever attacks can kill your machine. A friend's email can infect you, but not them. They can be carriers. This one was quite subtle and told the viewer that they were infected with all manner of bad things and the only remedy was to pay for and download the fix that the malware suggested. The hacker hads been arrested, but the legacy lives on as it worms its way around the Internet. Of course any click on the screen caused more infections and those that gave away their credit cards were in trouble. By the way, don't click on anything that you don't trust. Even the window shutdowns lead to further trouble. Just shut your machine down and get some expert advice. One of the great myths of the computer industry is that MAC has been free of this type of thing. What is true is that MAC has not been targeted as much by hackers because it is not as popular and does not exist in great quantities in corporations because most corporate IT is run by the PC. This does not mean that hackers have left the MAC alone. Even though the MAC has about a 5% penetration in the PC world, they have great advertising and the IPad has come on strong and well as the I-Phone. This has caused hackers to take up the challenge. Apple is aware of this and has been trying to block a lot of trouble. They have tried to do a good job in the past, but they will have to be on their game especially with IPad and IPhone and their relationship to the MAC operating system. We have printed a brief history of Malware for the MAC. It is not complete, but shows that it has a long history. So both MAC and PC users should pay attention. The history was compiled by a security expert. (see above right column heading) In our opinion the next big push will be aimed at phones and pad like devices. This will lead to more malware attacks on the MAC and PC. as a sidelight. There are many, many good protection packages for the PC. There are less for the MAC. One reason is that MAC marketing has lulled users into thinking they are immune. Don't be careless, if you are a MAC user don't believe the hype that security comes with a marketing campaign. Brief History of Malware on the MAC 1988 1990 1995 1996 1998 David Harley of Macvirus tells me that he remembers watching with interest as reports of Autostart spread from Asia to the rest of the world. In the same year, Sevendust, also known as 666, infected applications on Apple Mac computers. Big changes to the Mac malware scene were just around the corner, however, with the release of Mac OS X - a whole new version of the operating system which would mean that much of the old malware would no longer be capable of running. In the future, Mac-specific malware would have to be written with a new OS in mind.. 2004 Hackers also wrote a proof-of-concept program called Amphimix which demonstrated how executable code could be disguised as an MP3 music file on an Apple Mac. 2006 The Inqtana worm and proof-of-concept virus soon followed. A buggy proof-of-concept virus called Macarena appeared, written in Xcode. Every infected file contained the phrases
and
2007 The BadBunny worm dropped Ruby script viruses on Mac OS X systems, and displayed an indecent JPEG image of a man wearing a rabbit costume. The first financial malware for Mac was discovered. The gang behind the attacks developed both Windows and Mac versions of their OSX/RSPlug-A Trojan horse.
The Trojan posed as a codec to help users view pornographic videos, but in fact changes DNS server entries to direct surfers unwittingly to other websites. 2008
Close 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.
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. 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.
Controversially, Apple issued a support advisory urging customers to run anti-virus software - but after media interest, rapidly deleted the page from their website. 2009 In the same month, a new variant of the Trojan was distributed in a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop CS4. 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 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. 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 reality, however, the link lead unsuspecting users to malware which could infect Mac users. Meanwhile, Apple finally began to introduce some rudimentary anti-malware protection into Mac OS X. Although it wasn't really equivalent to a true anti-virus product (it only protected against a handful of Mac malware, doesn't defend you if you try to copy an infected file from a USB stick for instance, and doesn't offer clean-up facilities), it was still encouraging to see some attempt to offer more protection for Mac users. 2010 The backdoor Trojan horse can allow hackers to gain remote control over your treasured iMac or MacBook. Once again, the malware was distributed disguised as a legitimate application - in this case, iPhoto, the photo application which ships on modern Macs. More recently, the Boonana cross-platform worm appeared, using a Java applet to target not just Windows computers for infection, but Mac OS X and Linux too.
Sophos detects various components of the attack as Troj/Boonana-A, Troj/KoobStrt-A, Troj/KoobInst-A, Troj/KoobCls-A, Troj/Agent-PDY, Troj/DwnLdr-IOX, and Troj/DwnLdr-IOY. In addition, Sophos's web protection blocks access to the malicious webpages. Also in 2010, Sophos issued a free home user version of its anti-virus for Macs. We have been protecting business customers who have Macs for years, and now there was a chance for home Mac users to protect themselves against the threat too. Early reports indicate that there are plenty of Mac users with malware on their computers - some of it is Windows malware, some Mac OS X, and some cross-platform. There's no doubt that the Windows malware problem is much larger than the Mac threat - but that doesn't mean that the danger of malware infection on Mac OS X is non-existent.
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Copyright Saugeen & Kincardine Times |
 for
world news,
books, sports, movies ...Sunday, February 27, 2011 |
The
Renepo script worm attempted to
Sophos
discovered an OpenOffice multi-platform macro worm capable of running on
Windows, Linux and Mac computers.
In
November, Sophos warned of the
In
January 2009, hackers began to distribute the OSX/iWorkS-A Trojan horse
via BitTorrent inside
