MacDefender undergoes a name change, MacShield
The MacDefender malware has morphed again, now taking the guise of "MacShield." As in the case of its oldest sibling MacDefender, the MacShield variant has taken the name of a legitimate Mac OSX software product with small distribution, doubtless causing the real developer significant heartache.
The UI is essentially unchanged, but as usual all of the dialogs and alerts have been updated with the new naming:
The UI contains the typical reassuring gibberish bragging about 250 "specialists" working in "more than 10 countries," and a database that includes "almost all known dangerous software." With all that expertise on-hand, it's rather surprising that doesn't detect itself as malware.
To lure MacShield follows the same scareware tactics as the MacDefender malware. The risk of infection can be reduced per the comments in my earlier blog, and removal of the malware follows the exisitng guidelines published by Apple or in our KB article here.
ESET Cybersecurity detects the MacShield variant as OSX/Adware.MacDefender.K.
5 Responses to “MacDefender undergoes a name change, MacShield”
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June 3rd, 2011 at 10:07 am
Love this antivirus protection software.
June 5th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Thank you for this valued information. I was getting all sorts of rubbish on my machine, but now it's clean. Many thanks.
June 5th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
You’re welcome!
June 7th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
thanks ESET for this info, now i'm more careful on downloading anything over the internet,
and of course, my ESET NOD is always protecting my system, as always,
September 14th, 2011 at 1:11 am
One of the things I value is honesty. It is rare to find in this market