Anti-virus software provider F-Secure has reported on a new Mac trojan horse that disables a Mac’s automatic malware definition updates. The good news is that users can avoid it by avoiding bogus Flash installers.
F-Secure has dubbed the new pest trojan-Downloader:OSX/Flashback.C. A trojan horse works by fooling you into running it; in this case, Flashback disguises itself as an installer package for Flash Player.
The earlier incarnation of the Flashback trojan horse sent information about your Mac back to a remote server, which was bad enough, but this new version disables the security definition updating mechanism Apple first introduced in Snow Leopard back in May; the same malware protection is included in Lion. Installing the rogue software prompts users to input their administrator password. Enter that and Flashback.C wipes out files necessary for the malware definition updating process to run properly.
By disabling the malware definitions update, Flashback.C attempts to ensure that a Mac won’t know about any update Apple releases to remove the malicious software. Notably, the trojan horse bails and deletes itself if you have the Little Snitch app installed.
A series of instructions on how to deal with the malware can be found on a dedicated page on F-secure’s website.
IDG News Service
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