Raid on Russian Firm May Have Taken Down MacDefender Malware

[Digitalclips]

If this is the worst "threat" Mac users see then I find that pretty funny . I mean it doesn't do anything. Well, other than some small pop ups and asks for your credit card? Really? That is considered a "major threat..."

Unless it slows down or crashes your computer (ahem Windows Super Antivirus 2009 (10, 11, etc) then its just annoying. Nice that its gone though

My dad actually managed to get this thing [facepalm]. I just deleted it from apps and presto. Gone. It didn't even leave anything on the system (did a full search). =). Alternatively removing the fake A/V software on Windows can be a bit of a chore and best if you catch it early.

Yep, nowhere near as bad as the Russian virus the KGB administered from the top of a brolly!

 

[Shrink]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A5274d)

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but anyone that falls for the old "YOU HAVE VIRUSES!!! Give us your credit card number and we'll get rid of them!" trick deserves what they get.

Try to remember back when you were a newbie and not the techno-sophistic you are now. There is a learning curve. People come to sites like MR so they can learn (and not be duped by malware).

A tiny bit of empathy might be in order.

 

[organerito]

Now I'm hungry...

Poutine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
Putin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

Quebecers like poutine, Putin not that much.

 

[Tinototem]

So does this mean mac goes back to being "virus free"?

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Of course they mean infecting the computers of less-savvy users, which it did...

It is a non-virus, and a non-virus cannot infect anything. It is a trojan horse, NOT a virus.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

So does this mean mac goes back to being "virus free"?

It was NOT a virus. It was a trojan horse.

 

[GGJstudios]

So does this mean mac goes back to being "virus free"?

Mac OS X has always been virus-free, and still is.

It is a non-virus, and a non-virus cannot infect anything.

That's false. Trojans can and do infect computers, just like viruses and worms. They simply require user interaction and permission to do so.

 

[tblrsa]

EB: Have any of the customers that you helped paid money to the Mac Defender pushers?

AC: My calls? No. However, the rep that works next to me has had a few people who have. It kept “denying their card” and asking them to put another in. One person ended up trying five different cards. I’m going to assume criminals now have ahold of the info.

OMG, Facepalm.

Lock him up and throw away the key.

 

[theLimit]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

MacDefender had completely slipped my mind. Must have been due to no constant reminders for the past six weeks.

 

[Swift]

This is very good news

I'm sorry for the Russian people, because so many of their businessmen are lawless. This is awful for them. Of course, our economically wise business leaders would never become so reckless-- Never mind.

But if we can ever rely on international definition and enforcement of Internet safety and freedom -- the two go together -- so that we'd know that many thieves will go to jail, then the more cases like this, the better.

 

[Consultant]

It was Apple's screte service i tell you

That's why we haven't heard from Steve Jobs lately.

Or shall we say, Ninja Steve?

 

[jman240]

That's false. Trojans can and do infect computers, just like viruses and worms. They simply require user interaction and permission to do so.

Just adding to your's. The main difference is that Trojans do not self replicate like Viruses and Worms but they can be just as destructive.

 

[*LTD*]

So now we're back down to 2.

 

[tblrsa]

That's why we haven't heard from Steve Jobs lately.

Or shall we say, Ninja Steve?

Steves Secret Mission is now complete.

 

[lkrupp]

It was NOT a virus. It was a trojan horse.

To the general public anything bad that gets on your computer is a virus. You can argue semantics and terminology all you want but almost everybody will call it a virus no matter what. It doesn't matter to John Doe if he installed it himself by entering his password, he will blame the computer. The term has made it into the lexicon of the massess. You can't change it.

 

[IzzyJG99]

The Russians. It's always the Russians.

 

[Repo]

If you're not tech-savvy and you need help, ask someone who is. The internet has it's dark alleys.

 

[Gasu E.]

Now I'm hungry...

Poutine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
Putin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

Oh, I thought he said "putain."

 

[Aduntu]

In order to obtain a merchant account, typically you have to submit your company to a full background and credit check, so it should be a piece of cake to follow the money trail right to the door of whoever is profiting from these scams.

Unfortunately, that's just not true. It's incredibly easy to apply for and obtain a merchant account.

It is a non-virus, and a non-virus cannot infect anything. It is a trojan horse, NOT a virus.

It was NOT a virus. It was a trojan horse.

Nobody cares about this argument anymore, and it certainly doesn't help prove a point. Malware/virus/trojan/worm all stand for things that aren't welcome. The technical differences between them are not important.

 

[GGJstudios]

The technical differences between them is not important.

It's very important when it comes to defending against them.

 

[Sjhonny]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

In Soviet Russia, anti-virus software....

No, I'm not gonna go there...

Euhm ... soviet russia doesn't exist anymore ... It has been disbanded like 20 years ago . There're few countries more Capitalistic then mother Russia right now.

+ Kaspersky is one of the major players in the AV market. So saying that everything Russia produces is malware, is a severe overstatement.

But that doesn't mean it isn't one of the major players in the hacking industry . That's mostly because Russia is known for having a highly uncooperative gouvernement, concerning international cyber crime. It's not like all hackers live in Russia, but lots of (Blackhat, European) hackers highjack Russian servers, which they control via SSH, or use as a proxy, so they're real ip is virtually untraceable.

 

[BC2009]

Nobody cares about this argument anymore, and it certainly doesn't help prove a point. Malware/virus/trojan/worm all stand for things that aren't welcome. The technical differences between them are not important.

Wrong.

It's very important when it comes to defending against them.

Right.

Defending against a trojan is always going to be a reactionary measure. Unless you prevent installation of software on the machine from Web downloads or from nefarious media (Mac App Store?) you can only stop a trojan after it has struck at least one user. Essentially, a trojan can be written for your system no matter how secure it is.

However, a virus exploits known security flaws in your system and typically replicates itself and tries to move on to other machines as well. The maker of the operating system is directly responsible for letting the virus on to the computer.

Are Macs virus free because Apple writes better software? Certainly the exploit used for JailBreakMe.com could have been used for a virus to gain access to the machine. New security measures in Lion like sand-boxing the PDF viewer/parser or the video decoders are going to go a long way to stopping exploits like that.

But the only security measure that Mac OS X can add to stop a Trojan is to require all application installations to go through the Mac App Store unless you go through some sort of questionnaire that first verifies that you are in fact savvy enough to know what it is you are installing.

 

[Shrink]

Oh, I thought he said "putain."

Yikes - multi-lingual puns

The IQ level of this thread just went up 20 points

 

[tigress666]

I always wondered why authorities haven't gone after the credit card processors who process the payments for these kinds of scams.

In order to obtain a merchant account, typically you have to submit your company to a full background and credit check, so it should be a piece of cake to follow the money trail right to the door of whoever is profiting from these scams.

Visa and Mastercard (the two biggest credit cards in the US) could also step in and deny merchant services wholesalers that have these kinds of transactions the ability to process Visas or Mastercards, which would effectively kill the offending processors business and/or make that industry clean up its act.

With a few strategic moves, the financial incentive to put out malware like this (which is all too common) would be greatly diminished and we'd probably see A LOT less of it.

The credit card companies don't care about stopping thieves. I'm betting they do the cost analysis and decide it's too expensive to go after them and it's cheaper just to let them get money.

Seriously. They make more money by making things easy to use them then they do by stopping people from stealing. Most off the time they don't get affected (They just refuse to pay the merchant if some one paid the merchant with a stolen card).'

Of course, I say this cause I"m a little jaded. I had my ID stolen years ago... all the thief had was my frikkin SSN number and my name. Seriously, he didn't even have my birthdate right or where I lived. 13 banks allowed him to open a credit card in my name (or allowed poeple he sold my ID to). ONe of those banks told me they thought something was fishy about the application. So they closed the card *AFTER* the guy transferred 15k of debt on to the card. Obviously the banks would rather give out cards like candy cause they make more money encouraging people to buy irresponsibly than money they lose to fraudalant charges (you think I or the thief paid the bank back that 15k of money? No. I'm not paying it, I didn't charge it. And of course the thief isn't going to pay it).

In my experience, banks/credit card companies don't give one ***** about theft. They make more money by worrying about getting you to spend more (which also involves not hassling anyone who is using the card. It's why they want you to sign for charges rather than enter a pin. Entering a pin might cause some people not to use the card cause it's too inconvenient though entering a pin is far more secure than just putting a signature down).

 

[Glideslope]

Thanks Vlad!!!