Flashback Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Security Researcher Brian Krebs outs the man behind the Flashback malware

by Yoni Heisler (Apr 3rd, 2013)

In April 2012, security researchers discovered a new piece of malware targeting OS X users. The malware was dubbed "Flashback" and reportedly infected more than 600,000 Mac users, including about 200 machines on Apple's Cupertino campus. The malware was able to infect so many machines because ...

iPhone 5th anniversary flashback: Welcome to 2006 and the height of Apple Phone predictions

by Erica Sadun (Jun 29th, 2012)

Happy 5th birthday, iPhone. Looking back, 2006 was an awesome time to be rolling in predictions. The drumroll for the iPhone was steady, furious, and demanding. As the tempo grew as Macworld 2007 grew near, everyone was hoping for something amazing, and Apple delivered. Five years after the ...

Daily Update for May 15, 2012

by Steven Sande (May 15th, 2012)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player ...

Apple releases Leopard update, Flashback removal tool

by Dave Caolo (May 15th, 2012)

Apple has released a security update for Leopard, the first in quite a while, as well as a Flashback removal tool for that version of the OS. According to Apple, Leopard Security Update 2012-003 "disables versions of Adobe Flash Player that do not include the latest security updates and ...

Daily Update for May 1, 2012

by Steven Sande (May 1st, 2012)

Flashback was earning about $10K per day

by Steven Sande (May 1st, 2012)

People often wonder about what motivates the creators of malware. In the case of the Flashback malware that infected several hundred thousand Macs, it turns out that the motivator was money. A post on the Symantec official blog listed the stages of infection from Flashback: A user visits ...

Another Mac Flashback variant out, but still uses same (patched) vulnerability

by Mike Schramm (Apr 24th, 2012)

We're not quite done with Flashback yet. The good news is that the number of Macs affected by the trojan has gone down greatly, but the bad news is that there's a new variant of it out in the public. It's called Flashback.S, and just like the original, it can worm its way into a Mac's home ...

Flashback infections down from over half a million to under 150,000 in eight days

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 18th, 2012)

According to Symantec, the OSX.Flashback.K infection is declining each day. The current number of infected Macs is now around 140,000, down from 600,000 a week ago. If you think you may be infected, you can run a Flashback removal tool from either Kapersky or F-Secure. Apple also has a tool ...

Flashback removal tool for no-Java 10.7 Lion now available

by Michael Rose (Apr 13th, 2012)

The security risks of having a Java virtual machine/runtime environment on your Mac have been highlighted over the past two weeks, as the Flashback trojan spread widely by taking advantage of a vulnerability that Oracle had patched months ago -- but that Apple had not. There is a mitigating ...

Java for OS X 2012-003 update kills Flashback malware, available now

by Steven Sande (Apr 12th, 2012)

Just this morning we noted that Apple had not yet come out with a tool to kill the Flashback malware, and that Kaspersky and F-Secure had both developed their own free tools. This afternoon, Apple released Java for OS X 2012-003 to remove "most common variants of the Flashback ...

Daily Update for April 12, 2012

by Steven Sande (Apr 12th, 2012)

Flashback malware removal tools released by security firms

by Michael Grothaus (Apr 12th, 2012)

While Apple has said it "is developing software that will detect and remove the Flashback malware" that has affected up to 600,000 Macs worldwide, it has yet to release any fix. In lieu of that a few security and antivirus firms have gone ahead and released their own Flashback removal ...

Apple responds to Flashback trojan, promises removal tool

by Michael Rose (Apr 10th, 2012)

In a tech note published today, Apple discussed the Flashback trojan (past coverage here) and reminded users of OS X 10.6 and 10.7 that they should install the April 3 Java update to remove the vulnerability that the malware uses to infect Macs. For users of OS X 10.5 Leopard or earlier, Apple ...

Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET: Fighting Flashback

by Michael Rose (Apr 8th, 2012)

As this holiday weekend draws to a close, the unfortunate fact is that we may be dealing with the largest Mac-centric botnet ever documented in the wild. While the Flashback trojan is easy to find and simple to prevent -- in fact, a stock Lion installation includes neither Java nor the Flash ...

How to find/remove the Flashback trojan

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 5th, 2012)

According to Russian antivirus firm Dr. Web, over 600,000 Macs worldwide are infected with the Mac flashback trojan. The trojan can be installed if you visit a malicious website, and it will attempt to connect your Mac to a botnet. Fifty-seven percent of infected machines are located in the ...