Security vendor Intego claims to have found a new trojan attack that targets Apple's OS X operating system but competing security firms (McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro) have yet to find samples of the trojan. Intego said that malware authors spammed Mac forums with links to pornographic websites hosting the malware. If confirmed, the trojan would be the first piece of truly malicious software to be targeted at OS X, as opposed to the various proof-of-concept attacks that researchers have previously developed.
The OSX.RSPlug.A trojan allegedly disguises itself as a video codec that would provide access to a pornographic video but in reality is a piece of malware classified as a 'DNS Changer'. The software changes the way OS X would handle the DNS requests that are used to link numerical IP addresses to web URLs. The tool allows the attackers to redirect web traffic, opening the door for phishing scams.
News source: vnunet
The OSX.RSPlug.A trojan allegedly disguises itself as a video codec that would provide access to a pornographic video but in reality is a piece of malware classified as a 'DNS Changer'. The software changes the way OS X would handle the DNS requests that are used to link numerical IP addresses to web URLs. The tool allows the attackers to redirect web traffic, opening the door for phishing scams.
















but come on,,, it asks to be isntalled, user has to put in their administrator password, and gotten by lookign at britany spears "questionable" videos.....
if it was IRL, they would prolly get a Virus also,, jsut Non-Digital
also this virus,, doesnt self-propagate, its more like a program a user installs thinking its something else
Last edited by Hell-In-A-Handbasket on 01 Nov 2007 - 00:01
"On Friday, Mac programmers and security experts accused the company of exaggerating the threat to sell its security software.",
""They are spreading FUD to sell their software," said Ryan Kaldari, a programmer from Nashville, Tennessee, referring to the shorthand for fear, uncertainty and doubt."
It would seem that Intego has used dodgy tactics to sell it's mac security software before.
Anyway, hopefully this will get patched up soon enough.
Shouldn't this type of thing be illegal, its similar to thugs going into a restaurant with a baseball bat and commenting on how fragile everthing is.
This example of a "trojan horse" (as if!
and that, my friend, is exactly that. only idiots and mental retards pay exorbitant price for a dumb-down Mac PCs which cannot handle the simplest malwares because of, well, stupid users.
btw, welcome to the real world, mac heads, especially the horny mac heads. heh.
I can't believe it. You just wrote about a machine that is able to "handle malwares" as if it was something positive. I had to do a double-take there.
Please, by all means, continue enjoying your malware. Just unplug yourself from the net so the rest of us don't get spammed by your machine.
Been like 6 years now . . .
Us mac users are getting kind of bored with surfing the net unimpeded and not wasting our cpu cycles running antivirus software. I'm getting sick of getting so much work done and enjoying my mac due to so much uptime.
Been like 6 years now . . .
Us mac users are getting kind of bored with surfing the net unimpeded and not wasting our cpu cycles running antivirus software. I'm getting sick of getting so much work done and enjoying my mac due to so much uptime.
Do you enjoy playing GAMES and using ALL the software in the world (exaggerated, I know) on a mac? Forgot to add: let me know my up-time, please... since you know... what is the time my PC's been up? ????????
Last edited by RAID 0 on 01 Nov 2007 - 05:31
That's all you have? Games, crummy Windows software, and uptime?
Been like 6 years now . . .
Us mac users are getting kind of bored with surfing the net unimpeded and not wasting our cpu cycles running antivirus software. I'm getting sick of getting so much work done and enjoying my mac due to so much uptime.
you can't compare running AV software to uptime, if you want to get picky i have a linux box thats been up well over a year, i have a couple of windows boxes i reboot once a month, only to install updates on. my windows servers only go down when i take them down, yet when i did work with macs that mac server we had went down daily and took about 30 minutes to come back up, mostly cause my boss was a mac head and had no idea how computers really worked and was too stupid to fix it, eventually when he was away i sorted it out.
as for the CPU cycles my AV software has used like no cpu the whole time i have written this with task manager open and uses 11 meg of ram. how is that slowing my machine down so much again, personally my computer has so much processing power now, a couple of cpy cycles every so often for AV is nothing.
That's all you have? Games, crummy Windows software, and uptime?
HA! HAHAHHAHAHAHAH! No, really, you made me laugh. The majority of software IS for WINDOWS, not Apple. Plus, anything I want to do on a mac, I can do on my home built box. Including, but not limited to, running OS X. So what can you do on a mac, that you can't do on a PC? Video editing? Music making? Picture editing? Really, I'd like to know.
That's all you have? Games, crummy Windows software, and uptime?
HA! HAHAHHAHAHAHAH! No, really, you made me laugh. The majority of software IS for WINDOWS, not Apple. Plus, anything I want to do on a mac, I can do on my home built box. Including, but not limited to, running OS X. So what can you do on a mac, that you can't do on a PC? Video editing? Music making? Picture editing? Really, I'd like to know.
QuickLook and use apps that look nice, work well and follow HIG.
as for the you have to be stupid to install this, thats why the majority of viruses get on machines because of IDIOTS.
hell if all users were smart and knew how to keep a machine clean then we wouldn't have half the viruses out in the wild.
this is the same old argument yet again, the MAC fan boys will say it doesn't matter the windows fanboys will say mac sux and in the end everythign will be the same. and mac users won't decide to run AV software and will keep saying there are no viruses for osx and that proof of concept viruses don't count. blah blah blah.
So, it's essentially an exploit of human intelligence (or lack thereof), rather than an exploit of the OS.
So, it's essentially an exploit of human intelligence (or lack thereof), rather than an exploit of the OS.
It's called social engineering.
So, it's essentially an exploit of human intelligence (or lack thereof), rather than an exploit of the OS.
and thats how the majority of viruses infect machines. are you surprised??
ever heard of kevin mitnick, he did mist of his hacking through social engineering, things like pretending to be suport adn asking for passwords, there was even a test in the UK i thik where people were giving out chocolates to people that told them thier password, and a ridiculous amountof people told them their password.
In other news, if someone sends you an email that says to run sudo rm -rf / on the command line (and enter your admin password when it asks you to) — don’t do it. Interesting attack method — send someone malicious software and ask them to install it as administrator. The defense? Don’t install it.
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