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Virus attacking Apple Macintosh PCs

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Virus attacking Apple Macintosh PCs

Postby James » Thu 16 Feb, 2006 11:01 pm

from: Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A malicious computer worm has been found that targets Apple Computer Inc.'s (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) Mac
OS X operating system, believed to be the first such virus aimed specifically at the Mac platform.
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The worm is called OSX/Leap-A, according to a posting on the Web site of antivirus software company Sophos, which said the worm is spread via instant messaging programs.

read more about it here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060217/tc_ ... e_virus_dc
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Postby Antony » Thu 16 Feb, 2006 11:06 pm

Thanks for the news.

This is the safe part:
The worm will not automatically infect Mac computers, but will ask users to accept the file, Weafer said.
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Postby DJGM » Thu 16 Feb, 2006 11:36 pm

Seeing as this was the first thread in this forum to report this news, I've locked the other two threads.

(Including the thread I created, before I spotted the threads that'd already been started!)
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Postby DJGM » Thu 16 Feb, 2006 11:43 pm

Antony wrote:Thanks for the news.

This is the safe part:
The worm will not automatically infect Mac computers, but will ask users to accept the file, Weafer said.




Indeed . . .

In the locked thread started by me, I wrote:. . . Mac OS X is a UNIX based OS, any viruses/trojan/worms need to be given Admin
(or "root" access) privileges before they can start to wreak any havoc . . .

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Postby Pu7o » Thu 16 Feb, 2006 11:43 pm

Well, as much a "virus" as it might be, it's the kind of virus that only careless users get. Because to actually get it to infect you, you have to open the application that contains it...
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Postby DJGM » Thu 16 Feb, 2006 11:46 pm

IMHO, anyone who is stupid and careless enough to specifically allow a piece of malware to run
riot, deserves absolutely every bit of damage that the malware inflicts on their computer.
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Postby Antony » Fri 17 Feb, 2006 12:33 am

According to The Mac Observer, Apple released an official statement saying the "proof-of-concept" OSX/Leap-A is not a virus.

Apple Computer released an official statement regarding "OSX/Leap-A," a proof-of-concept piece of malware The Mac Observer reported early Thursday morning. In the statement, which was released to the Wall Street Journal, the company noted that ""Leap-A is not a virus, it is malicious software that requires a user to download the application and execute the resulting file."

Leap-A is merely an attempt to disguise an executable program as an image in effort to trick the recipient into launching the program. Launching a program in Mac OS X requires the user to enter their password, an indicator that should clue most users into the fact that it is not what it appears to be.
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Postby DJGM » Fri 17 Feb, 2006 9:32 am

This malware can reportedly only affect Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger. So, it's even less of a major issue than
everyone made it out to be, since the majority of Mac OS X users won't have the latest version yet.

The overall number of users that could be affected, is perhaps low enough to make it a non-issue.
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Postby J-M » Fri 17 Feb, 2006 7:09 pm

A coverage list of anti-virus description write-ups can be found via Common Malware Enumeration project at
http://cme.mitre.org/data/list.html#4

It helps to check if there is protection published from own AV vendor.

BTW: Earlier several news said that OS X users don't always use anti-virus software at all. What is the situation nowadays?
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Postby J-M » Wed 22 Feb, 2006 2:22 am

Again, maybe someone has an informative link to surveys etc. related to Mac users and AV software?
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Postby Antony » Wed 22 Feb, 2006 6:22 am

J-M wrote:BTW: Earlier several news said that OS X users don't always use anti-virus software at all. What is the situation nowadays?
Some don't, just like some Windows users.

However, the built-in firewall in Mac OS X is considered very strong and easy to configure.
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Postby J-M » Fri 24 Feb, 2006 1:11 pm

Thanks.
However, if Windows user decides not to use AV utility he/she _really_ has different reasons than a Mac user has.

It's expected that if Windows user is buying a used computer he doesn't buy it without anti-virus utility. Mac user possibly does.
The situation is changing soon, however.
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