SophosLabs has “advised the Apple Macintosh community not to panic following the discovery of another Trojan horse Mac OS X platform,” according to a Sophos press release.
MacDailyNews Take: Okay, we’ll just continue sitting here fighting the completely nonexistent urge to run screaming through the halls of the palatial MDN headquarters.
Sophos continues, “Instead, Apple Mac lovers are advised to ensure that they continue to take personal computer security seriously and have a secure defense in place.”
MacDailyNews Take: You mean don’t fall for a dumbass Trojan? Relax, we’re Mac users, dudes. And, we do take personal computer security seriously, that’s one of the reasons we have Macs. As always, do not download, authorize, and install software from unknown, untrusted Websites or any other sources.
Sophos continues, “The Trojan, named Troj/MacSwp-B (also known as Imunizator), tries to scare Mac users into purchasing unnecessary software by claiming that privacy issues have been discovered on the computer.”
Sophos press release reads, “‘Windows users are no stranger to scareware like this, but it is rarer on the Apple Macintosh. Nevertheless MacSwp-B’s discovery does follow fast on the heels of other malware that has been identitifed on the Mac OS X platform in recent months,’ said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. ‘Cybercrime against Mac users may be small in comparison to Windows attacks, but it is growing. Apple Macintosh users need to learn from the mistakes made by their Windows cousins in the past and ensure that they have defenses in place, are up-to-date with patches and exercise caution about what they run on their computer.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Interesting. A press release about scareware that tries to scare Mac users into purchasing unnecessary software from a “security software” peddler attempting to scare Mac users into purchasing unnecessary software.
We’re turning off our Mac OS X firewalls for the entire weekend in honor of the duplicity. Oh, wait, they’re already off. They’ve been off for a months. We never turned them back on the last time we switched them off to honor an AV peddler and, guess what, we’ve continued to surf the Web unimpeded just as we’ve done for the past 7+ years because we do not download, authorize, and install software from unknown, untrusted Websites or any other sources.
Here’s the deal: This “MacSweeper” from “IMUNIZATOR” claims to scan Universal “Binnaries.” That misspelling ought to be enough right there, but just to make sure:
Ignore this trojan and do not click “Start Scan” (or any of the other buttons), close and/or force quit the window. When run, regardless of the state of your Mac, Troj/MacSwp-B fraudulently claims that it has found several privacy violations. Users are then prompted to purchase this worthless trojan in order to “clean up” their system. Do not purchase the Trojan. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
