Josh Ong
Russian antivirus company Dr. Web issued a report on Wednesday noting that 550,000 computers running OS X had been infected by BackDoor.Flashback variants of the malware, as highlighted by ArsTechnica.
An analyst for the company later updated the figure to note that the size of the botnet had reached 600,00. He also pointed out that 274 bots are originating from Apple's hometown of Cupertino, Calif.
According to a map released by the firm, 56.6 percent of infected computers are located in the United States. Canada was second with 19.8 percent, followed by the U.K. with 12.8 percent of cases.
Apple released a Java Security update on Tuesday to resolve the vulnerabilities that the malware is exploiting, but not before a number of Mac users had been hit with the malicious software. Oracle first issued a fix for the vulnerability in February.
Security firm Intego publicized the Flashback trojan last September. Some variants of the software were even discovered with the potential to disable anti-malware protections within OS X.
Researchers F-Secure have provided instructions on how to detect and remove the malware.
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124 Comments
Thank goodness I have had AV installed on all my Macs for a while now :-)
No problems for me. No AV software either bar ClamXav. I already had disabled "Enable Java" via Safari>Preference>Security.
I'm clean. No AV software since the late 1990s.
um, has anybody at AI (or anyplace) bothered to check if:
- "Dr. Web" of Russia is for real?
- they actually know what they are talking about?
- they have some fact-based stats, and are not pulling numbers out of their butt?
- anybody knows the identify of any of the purported Trojan websites? like even one? and has proved it is in fact operational as reported?
...infected by BackDoor.Flashback variants of the virus,...
...to resolve the vulnerabilities that the virus is exploiting
What is it now? Didn't you write, that it is a trojan, but now you write, it is a virus.
Make up your mind.
Anyway, since there are no viruses affecting Mac OS X in public circulation, this is probably a trojan. To learn the difference, which is just a tiny bit important, as the word "virus" probably gets you more clicks, look here.