Over Half A Million Apple Computers Get Virus – Flashback Trojan
More than half a million Apple computers have been infected with the Flashback Trojan, according to a Russian anti-virus firm. Its report claims that about 600,000 Macs have installed the malware – potentially allowing them to be hijacked and used as a “botnet”. The firm, Dr Web, says that more than half that number are based in the US. Apple has released a security update, but users who have not installed the patch remain exposed. The patch updates Java 1.6.0_29 to Java version 1.6.0_31, so it’s a quick fix!
Attackers began to exploit CVE-2011-3544 and CVE-2008-5353 vulnerabilities to spread malware in February 2012, and after March 16 they switched to another exploit (CVE-2012-0507). The vulnerability has been closed by Apple only on April 3 2012. The exploit saves an executable file onto the hard drive of the infected Mac machine. The file is used to download malicious payload from a remote server and to launch it. Doctor Web found two versions of the Trojan horse: attackers started using a modified version of BackDoor.Flashback.39 around April 1.
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