Mac trojan variant cripples built-in OS X malware protection

They say that the best defense is a good offense, but when it comes to computers, often the anti-virus and anti-malware programs tend to beat a hasty retreat, reacting most of the time to new viruses and trojans that pop up in a never ending cat and mouse game. Well, it seems that there is a variant of a Mac trojan floating around that will disable OS X malware protection. This particular trojan is known as Trojan-Downloader:OSX/Flashback.C, where it was discovered by researchers at F-Secure. Posing as a Flash Player installer, this new version (just like the old) will do more than its predecessor, including disabling Apple’s automatic updating mechanism for its system-wide malware application.

To put it mildly, victims of this latest trojan might not be able to receive updates from Apple at all in an effort to remove the trojan. Who says that Macs are not vulnerable to viruses, although some will argue that trojans and viruses are not the same? According to F-Secure, “Attempting to disable system defenses is a very common tactic for malware—and built-in defenses are naturally going to be the first target on any computing platform.” You can remove Flashback.C via running a virus/malware scanner to locate the infected files though, but this is going to be a tedious process.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Apple, Computers
Tags: Malware, trojan