ESET Threat Blog

Yesterday, ESET announced the discovery of a new threat against the Apple Mac OS X platform. Today, we have found a new version of the same threat. The new version is similar to the previous version with two important differences. The first addition to this threat is that it now implements persistence on an infected … Read More…

ESET would like to extend our sincere sympathies to the friends, family and colleagues of Steve Jobs. Steve was a true visionary, without whom the world of computing would be very different. If you have never seen Steve's Stanford University Commencement Address, you should, it's truly inspirational. The third point he makes is that we … Read More…

A new attack against Apple Mac OS X Lion (10.7) has been detected by Intego.  The threat is a trojan, dubbed Flashback, installed via a fake Adobe Flash installer downloaded from a third party site.
As with the MacDefender and Revir malware the Flashback attack uses social engineering to entice the user to download then install the … Read More…

 
A new trojan has been released targeting the Macintosh Chinese-language user community.  The trojan appears to the user to be a PDF containing a Chinese language article on the long-running dispute over whether Japan or China owns the Diaoyu Islands.  
When the user opens the “PDF” file, it attempts to mask the installation of a … Read More…

Forensic software developer PassWare announced a new version of its eponymous software forensics kit on Tuesday. Already several news sources are writing about how the program can automatically obtain the login password from a locked or sleeping Mac simply by plugging in a USB flash drive containing their software and connecting it to another computer … Read More…

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 … Read More…

In the last few days, I have been asked by a journalist (or four) what MacDefender means for the future of Apple security, and if I thought there was excess hype around it.  
I'll address the second question first.   I think its safe to say the current malware would not be newsworthy if it … Read More…

Security companies in general and, unfortunately, anti-malware companies in particular, are often accused of ‘hyping’ threats because of a perceived self-interest. However, in the main, legitimate vendors and researchers like those at ESET typically try to resist overhyping or playing up threats where possible, in favor of more balanced discussion that can help customers take … Read More…

George Santayana was a really smart philosopher. He is best known for his quote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
If you want to learn a little something from the past so as not to repeat other people’s mistakes then you can read Aryeh’s blog from when the first iPad … Read More…

I like Macs. Not in an "OS X is God's own Operating System" sort of way, but I've owned/used many Macs, from SE/30s and IICX's to iMacs, eMacs and Macbooks. In fact, at least two of my books were written on the Powerbook which was my workhorse machine in my last couple of years at … Read More…