Is the Flashback trojan a threat to updated Macs?

[Guz2]

I recently bought a late 2014 Mac mini. Today, I found out that some financial information has been compromised - I don't want to go in to details, but fortunately no harm was done. Still, it's rather scary and I'd like to locate the source of the problem. As my Mac is new, I've been installing a few pieces of software for it, one of which was Adobe Flash. I downloaded it after being prompted by a website (the website belonged to a major television broadcaster here in Britain, it's a legitimate site). Is it possible that I have Flashback, even though I'm running Yosemite and my all the software is up to date? If so, how would I remove it?

 

[GGJstudios]

I recently bought a late 2014 Mac mini. Today, I found out that some financial information has been compromised - I don't want to go in to details, but fortunately no harm was done. Still, it's rather scary and I'd like to locate the source of the problem. As my Mac is new, I've been installing a few pieces of software for it, one of which was Adobe Flash. I downloaded it after being prompted by a website (the website belonged to a major television broadcaster here in Britain, it's a legitimate site). Is it possible that I have Flashback, even though I'm running Yosemite and my all the software is up to date? If so, how would I remove it?

The Flashback vulnerability in Java was corrected before your computer was built. You don't have Flashback on your Mac.

Macs are not immune to malware, but no true viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any since it was released over 12 years ago. The only malware in the wild that can affect Mac OS X is a handful of trojans, which can be easily avoided by practicing safe computing (see below). 3rd party antivirus apps are not necessary to keep a Mac malware-free, as long as a user practices safe computing, as described in the following link.

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Read the What security steps should I take? section of the Mac Virus/Malware FAQ for tips on practicing safe computing.

 

[wordsworth]

Have you had an e-mail request to update your Yahoo Mail software (or perhaps similar for whatever mail software you do use) within recent weeks/months? I was caught out recently by a supposed Yahoo request but immediately realised (within a minute or so) that I"d been fooled, and changed my password.


Until that point I had always believed that one had to be pretty stupid to fall for such a scam. I now know that such stupidity can come from simply being distracted and tired.

Do you do online banking?

Whatever, I certainly wouldn't download Flash from anywhere other than directly from Adobe's website.