ESET Threat Blog

The Flashback trojan has been all over the news lately, but it is not the only Mac malware threat out there at the moment. A few weeks ago, we published a technical analysis of OSX/Lamadai.A, the Mac OS X payload of a multi-platform attack exploiting the Java vulnerability CVE-2011-3544 to infect its victims. OSX/Lamadai.A has … Read More…

The biggest Mac botnet ever encountered, the OSX/Flashback botnet, is being hit hard. On April 12th, Apple released a third Java update since the Flashback malicious code outbreak. This update includes a new tool called MRT (Malware Removal Tool) which allows Apple to quickly push malware removal code to their user base. The first mission … Read More…

If you are a Mac user and you have Java installed on your Mac, then right now would be a good time to run Software Update… from the Apple menu to make sure you have installed the latest Java for Mac OS X update. Installing this update will help protect your Mac from a malicious … Read More…

Earlier this month, researchers from AlienVault and Intego reported a new malware attack targeting Tibetan NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). The attack consisted of luring the victim into visiting a malicious website, which then would drop a malicious payload on the target’s computer using Java vulnerability CVE-2011-3544 and execute it. The webserver would serve a platform-specific JAR … Read More…

The Mac OS X information stealing malware OSX/Imuler, initially discovered last fall, has resurfaced. This time, instead of being installed by the OSX/Revir.A dropper, this new variant of OSX/Imuler hides itself inside a ZIP archive, right in the middle of an array of erotic pictures, waiting for the user to open the malicious application.

This new … Read More…

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…

We’ve just come across an IRC controlled backdoor that enables the infected machine to become a bot for Distributed Denial of Service attacks. The interesting part about it is that it’s a Mach-O binary – targeting Mac OS X. ESET’s research team compared this to samples in our malware collection and discovered that this code … 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…