“A recent raid by Russian police has revealed evidence that a company called ChronoPay is indeed behind the Mac OS X scareware program MacDefender, despite the company’s earlier denials,” Jacqui Cheng reports for Ars Technica. “But while the raid and the arrest of ChronoPay’s CEO may put a dent in the company’s profits, it’s unlikely that MacDefender or its variants will disappear just yet.”
“When we conducted our own investigation into MacDefender, we discovered that it wasn’t taking over the Mac world like some had predicted, but the scareware app had made its way into the general population to some degree. Apple soon began combating MacDefender on the OS level, and there hasn’t been much news about the malware/scareware since,” Cheng reports. “But as it turns out, whoever was behind MacDefender continued chugging along, raking in money from unsuspecting Mac users until Russian law enforcement descended on the ChronoPay office in late July.”
Cheng reports, “According to former Washington Post reporter and current security expert Brian Krebs… while the raid may slow down ChronoPay and its ilk from seeding fake antivirus software onto the Internet, the industry is far too profitable for scammers to stay away for long.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward Weber” for the heads up.]