Virus 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 ...

Plague, Inc. gets a new virus, delivered in an interesting way

by Mike Schramm (Feb 26th, 2013)

Plague Inc. is one of the most popular strategy games on the App Store: It's a title with the gory premise of you controlling a plague running around the world, trying to infect as many people as possible before the rest of humanity can come up with a cure. The game's latest update is out this ...

Apple removes claim of virus immunity

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 26th, 2012)

As small as the threat may be, Mac users can no longer claim immunity from attack by malicious software online. Many Mac users are starting to recognize this new reality and now Apple does, too. As noted in a recent PC World article, Apple has quietly removed the claim "It doesn't get PC viruses" ...

Twenty percent of Macs examined infected with Windows malware

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 24th, 2012)

Sophos looked at 100,000 Mac computers and found that one in every five has some form of malware. This might sound alarming, but before you stare at your machine in disgust, you should get some perspective. The survey looked at 100,000 OS X machines that are running Sophos's free Mac ...

Kaspersky Lab: Macs not invulnerable to malware

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 19th, 2012)

The writing is on the wall. Our time of innocence is gone. Researchers from Kaspersky Labs claim Mac market share has finally reached the critical point, and the platform is now an attractive target for online criminals. Kaspersky told Ars Technica and other press on Thursday that, "Mac users ...

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 ...

DevilRobber now "improved", still nasty malware threat

by Kelly Guimont (Nov 18th, 2011)

We previously told you about DevilRobber and what sort of unsavory things it can do to (and with) your Mac. (In case you don't click over to read the article, here's the scoop: it's bad. Real bad.) Back in the day (November 1st), it was a Trojan horse and sent a little of your personal info ...

F-Secure reports Mac trojan poses as PDF

by Mike Schramm (Sep 23rd, 2011)

Security firm F-Secure has unearthed a troubling trojan for Macs that hides itself as a PDF, only waiting until the file is opened up and displaying some Chinese characters before it dives into your Mac's hard drive and sets up a backdoor control. Currently, according to F-Secure, the backdoor ...

Russian raid suggests tie between MacDefender and ChronoPay

by Chris Rawson (Aug 5th, 2011)

When the MacDefender malware made the rounds a few months ago, it sparked a frenzy of pundits claiming OS X's free ride in the malware scene was over (and as our research shows, they were wrong. Again). At the same time, we all wondered who was behind MacDefender in the first place. After a ...

Malware, Macs, and crying wolf: Doing the math

by Richard Gaywood (May 14th, 2011)

Love Apple gear? Like math? TUAW's Doing the Math series examines the numbers and the science that lie behind the hardware. The contentious subject of Mac security has been back in the news in recent weeks following the emergence of a fake antivirus package called MacDefender (also known as ...

McAfee predicts Apple under threat in 2011 (again)

by Mike Schramm (Dec 28th, 2010)

It happens around this time every year -- some company that makes its money from security computers claims that next year will finally be the year the Mac goes under attack from virus programmers. This year it's McAfee, who are claiming in a report that due to the popularity of iOS devices, Apple ...

Sophos releases free Mac anti-virus package

by Richard Gaywood (Nov 2nd, 2010)

Security company Sophos has today released a free Home Edition of its Mac virus scanner suite. This is a timely move by Sophos to get an early foothold in what could become a significant market for aftermarket OS X security tools. While it's true that Macs have, until now, enjoyed a relatively ...

New jailbroken iPhone worm is malicious

by Dave Caolo (Nov 23rd, 2009)

Last month a Dutch iPhone user demonstrated how careless jailbreaking can cause trouble. Namely, after finding users who enabled SSH with the phone's default password intact, he sent those phones a message that read, "Your iPhone's been hacked because it's really insecure! Please visit ...

Cisco adds Security Intelligence Ops to iPhone portfolio

by Michael Rose (Nov 21st, 2009)

Despite some security-conscious enterprise experts pointing accusatory fingers at the rather bleak encryption story and only-recently fixed ActiveSync policy compliance on the iPhone platform, there's no doubt that IT and network professionals are grooving on the iPhone -- there are many apps ...

Ask TUAW: Auto-tagging music, iPhone VoIP apps, replacing a hard drive and more

by Mat Lu (Nov 11th, 2009)

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about VOIP apps on the iPhone, auto-tagging music, Boot Camp, replacing a hard drive and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments ...