Russian software firm says the malware can give hackers control of users' computers
A Russian anti-virus company, Doctor Web, has issued a report saying its research shows the Trojan BackDoor.Flashback is now infecting more than a half-million computers running Apple's Mac OS X.
It says most of the infected machines are in the U.S. and Canada. While Apple users have long thought their machines were virtually invulnerable to virus and worm threats, the harsh truth is that most threats were aimed at Windows machines simply because there are so many more of them. With Apple taking a bigger market share, it becomes a more attractive target.
"Systems get infected with BackDoor.Flashback.39 after a user is redirected to a bogus site from a compromised resource or via a traffic distribution system," the company said in a press release. "JavaScript code is used to load a Java-applet containing an exploit. Doctor Web's virus analysts discovered a large number of web-sites containing the code."
It says most of the infected machines are in the U.S. and Canada. While Apple users have long thought their machines were virtually invulnerable to virus and worm threats, the harsh truth is that most threats were aimed at Windows machines simply because there are so many more of them. With Apple taking a bigger market share, it becomes a more attractive target.
"Systems get infected with BackDoor.Flashback.39 after a user is redirected to a bogus site from a compromised resource or via a traffic distribution system," the company said in a press release. "JavaScript code is used to load a Java-applet containing an exploit. Doctor Web's virus analysts discovered a large number of web-sites containing the code."
Read on at (By Mark Huffman):
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2012/04/trojan-reportedly-infects-500000-macs.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2012/04/trojan-reportedly-infects-500000-macs.html