New Variant of 'Mac Defender' Quickly Evades Apple's Security Update as Cat-and-Mouse Game Begins

[cozmot]

I wonder, you'd say the same thing if your mom or dad would have caught up with this.

Not everybody is smart or a genius.

Exactly. My elderly father-in-law just downloaded a malware program on his Windows PC, after being "warned" that a "virus" had been detected. I have to fix this problem for him now. Is he stupid? No. How should he have known the difference between this and is anti-virus program?

"Join date May 2011" next to your name tells me everything I need to know. Just another late comer who thinks he knows everything. I'm sure you will concoct some story as ignorant as your statement above.

That's a pretty ironic statement coming from someone with "macrumors newbie" next to his name.

You provided a well written opposing view point. You are obviously a troll

*Sarcasm alert

lol. His nose also must be smarting, since he obviously hit the wall of arrogance here!

Is there anyone on this forum who has *not* come across this scareware yet? Or am I the only one?

I haven't. Doesn't seem as prevalent as it's made out to be.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Very naiive of you.

Also, catching criminals is always after the fact. Better education and society would stop the creation of criminals.

I was referring to criminals in progress (i.e. this particular guy(s)). Simply blocking his trojans won't stop him from putting out more. Education won't help at this point. The guy needs to be caught and brought to justice.

 

[JQW]

You could buy Macs running A/IX in 1988. A curious combination of Unix and classic MacOS.

That was A/UX. AIX is IBM'srand of Unix, which Apple did supply with their short-lived Apple Network Servers in 1996.

 

[mcmlxix]

As of now this malware is tricking people into installing then tricking them into buying protection and getting their CC number. It has no negative payload. I wonder when it (or another) will have more negative consqnences.

Apple is now setting the precedent that they're in the anti-malware business for their platform. They'll have no choice but to keep that up.

 

[GGJstudios]

viruses can cause inconvenience but only trojans can cost you $$$ and steal your identity.

False. You apparently don't know the history of viruses that have caused significant problems over the years, costing millions of dollars of damage to systems.

does anyone remember mac os 9 having 120 (or something around that) viruse

There haven't been that many viruses in the entire history of Apple computers. It sounds like you're making this stuff up as you go along. Stick to the facts.

Could this be because I use opendns and they automatically filter out crap that might be lurking on bad domains? GGJStudios, any ideas?

No, you could still encounter MacDefender, even with OpenDNS servers. It's not a DNS issue. It's an attack through SEO (search engine optimization) that causes Google image search results to redirect to this malware. It's not so prevalent that every web surfer will encounter it, but many have, not only from Google, but from sites as popular as Yahoo and Facebook. I believe some sites may also have problems due to their ads. I've encountered it a few times, including some intentionally, so I could understand exactly how it works.

Just wondering, where do you even download these things from?

See above.

Here we go. The beginning.

It's not the beginning of anything.

Is there anyone on this forum who has *not* come across this scareware yet? Or am I the only one?

Most people have never encountered it. Only a small percentage of web surfers have.

Haven't seen it yet either. Of course, I use Firefox with Adblock+ and noscript. Never use Safari.

It's not browser-specific. You can encounter MacDefender, no matter what browser you use.

In all honesty this doesn't change a thing. Just install Sophos Antivirus (free for Mac)

Sophos is NOT recommended, as it can actually increase your Mac's vulnerability. Use ClamXav if you must, or better yet, use your head! No antivirus software is necessary.

Apple should make a more lasting update... Apple isn't as good as I thought at this. Maybe it is too dangerous for my father to buy a Mac.

You don't need Apple to do anything. Just tell your father not to install any software that he didn't deliberately choose and download. If any installation starts unexpectedly, cancel it. That's all he needs to be safe.

And I do believe that Macs cannot get viruses, meaning ones that can copy themselves, open automatically, and spread in ways a (normal) user cannot see. Macs are not immune to malware

You're right that Macs are not immune to malware, and that includes viruses. Macs CAN get viruses. They just DON'T, because no Mac OS X viruses exist.

Mac Virus/Malware Info​

The first section of that link deals specifically with the MacDefender/MacSecurity/MacProtector/MacGuard issue, which is not a virus.

 

[Hugh]

Apple has no incentive to take this threat seriously. They will use it to leverage people into only using the App Store. It will prepare people for the merging of iOS and Mac OS.

My guess is you'll see Apple lock down Mac like the iPhone

Not going to happen. Apple isn't going to lock down the OS and force you to go though the App Store.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Booooring. Can we get some variety here, please? Or are we going to have to wait another two years?

Same trojan over and over.

Just lock down OS X, iOS style, and be done with it. Macs will still sell in record numbers.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)



Boom.

Problem solved. This approach is working now, and will continue to work if brought to OS X.

But that will actually hurt Mac sales if Mac OS is locked down like iOS. Most users want to be able to install software from other sources, even Windows 8 still let's you install software from other places.

Hugh