Researchers dissect world's first Mac botnet

[Airbot]

Fresh research has shed new light on the world's first Mac OS X botnet, which causes infected machines to mount denial of service attacks.
Symantec researchers Mario Ballano Barcena and Alfredo Pesoli said the infections are the same ones described in this blog post from January.

In it, the blogger - a self-described designer and developer from Australia - said he awoke one morning to discover 100 per cent of his Mac laptop's resources were being consumed by a bunch of unfamiliar resources. After digging further, he found a foreign PHP script with root privileges was flooding an undisclosed website with data packets.

The botnet employs a peer-to-peer engine, encryption and a structure that allows it to dynamically adapt.

"The code indicates that, wherever possible, the author tried to use the most flexible and extendible approach when creating it - and therefore we would not be surprised to see a new, modified variant in the near future," the researchers write, according to ZDNet's Zero Day blog.

The botnet comes courtesy of two trojans dubbed OSX.Trojan.iServices.A and OSX.Trojan.iServices.B by Mac anti-virus provider Intego, which first documented them in January.

The malware is surreptitiously included in copies of Apple's iWork 09 productivity suite and Adobe's Photoshop CS4 that are distributed on warez sites. Intego said three months ago more than 20,000 people had downloaded the rogue installers.

more:The Register

 

[mxosder16]

good read

 

[Romulinx2]

Thanks, I read this article earlier. Should have posted.

 

[Barman58]

Thanks Aaron,



But mac's are immune to malware :sarc:

The price of fame I suppose, (or increased market share), but good read none the less

 

[Airbot]

Thanks Aaron,



But mac's are immune to malware :sarc:

roflmao

 

[johngalt]

No one in their right mind ever claimed that any computer system is *immune* to any sort of malware.

Here's a thought, though- let's get all the complete novices of the world who are considering buying a PC, and let them buy Macs - then they'll start getting more and more Mac infections and the more savvy folks will be running Win7 and have their machines more and more protected....

 

[Adamd]

No one in their right mind ever claimed that any computer system is *immune* to any sort of malware.

Here's a thought, though- let's get all the complete novices of the world who are considering buying a PC, and let them buy Macs - then they'll start getting more and more Mac infections and the more savvy folks will be running Win7 and have their machines more and more protected....

To the first part it is kind of sad to say, but I really think the average user thinks the Mac OS can't get malware,viruses,spyware etc.

My friends who have mac's always say how crappy windows is because they can get all that stuff and say you never have to worry about that with OSX and I am like your day will come. They are like right...

One day they will be equal or worse than Windows because of all the idiots who will just download anything because they can. To be honest I hope this happens more and more to Apple users lol

I am just getting tired of people being so obsessed with Apple products. If they were really that great don't you think on the quality rankings they would be hands down ahead of all the rest? Every time I see the lists come out they are never 1 or 2.

 

[johngalt]

Because their "fans' are truly "fanatical" about their products.

Don't get me wrong, I know Macs and use macs - I maintain a lab of Macs at School....nothing spectacular, but they work - however, I still prefer Windows, and especially W7.

 

[ikilledkenny]

I still like Windows, viruses and all. Unlike Mac users, I enjoy living on the edge

 

[Adamd]

Because their "fans' are truly "fanatical" about their products.

Don't get me wrong, I know Macs and use macs - I maintain a lab of Macs at School....nothing spectacular, but they work - however, I still prefer Windows, and especially W7.

Right I don't hate Mac's. I see nothing really wrong with them other than the price, but the ease of use I have found with Windows has me sticking with them. I also have the ease of downloading any program and chances are it will work on windows before any other OS.

Now that I have used W7 it is even more of a reason to not even consider a Mac.