Sci/Tech More than 600,000 Macs infected with Flashback botnet.

[tom_mai78101]

More than half a million Macs are infected with the Flashback Trojan, a malware package designed to steal personal information, according to a Russian antivirus company.

The company -- Dr. Web -- originally reported today that 550,000 Macintosh computers were infected by the growing Mac botnet. But later in the day, Dr. Web malware analyst Sorokin Ivan announced on Twitter that the number of Macs infected with Flashback had increased to 600,000, with 274 of those based in Cupertino, Calif.

More than half of the Macs infected are in the United States (57 percent), while another 20 percent are in Canada, Dr. Web said.

The malware was initially found in September 2011 masquerading as a fake Adobe Flash Player plug-in installer, but in the past few months it has evolved to exploiting Java vulnerabilities to target Mac systems. A new variant that surfaced over the weekend appears to be taking advantage of Java vulnerability for which Apple released a patch yesterday.

More than 600,000 Macs infected with Flashback botnet

Russian antivirus company says half the computers infected with malware designed to steal personal information are in the U.S. -- with 274 located in Cupertino.

www.cnet.com

 

[camelCase]

WHAT!?
IMPOSSIBLE!
"Macs don't get PC viruses"

IT SAID SO IN THE ADVERTISEMENT!
THIS ARTICLE LIES!

Nah, just kidding; but the advertisements do say that.
I sometimes wonder why Apple hasn't gotten sued for misinformation or misadvertising or w/e it is called.

If they said, "Macs don't get Windows viruses," I may forgive them.

 

[Accname]

PC usually stands for computers with windows while apple product computers are called mac.
So saying that a mac doesnt get a pc virus is completely legit since they use completely different operating systems the chances that a pc virus could potentially affect a mac is so little that you can practically say its nonexistant.

 

[Slapshot136]

I wonder how many of those had any anti-virus on them

 

[Sim]

As I understand it, the reason Macs didn't get viruses back then was simply because there were so few mac users around the world that it was mostly profiting for the hackers to aim at the PC users, who comprised over 95% of the population using a computer.

Now that the mac computers' popularity are increasing, hackers will, I think, start aiming at those too. And the mac users will realize that the sole reason why macs were safer was simply because of its low popularity compared to PC users (and also the fact it is programmed different).

In fact, if I was a hacker, I'd definitely aim at mac users now. They trust their computer more, and are thus more inclined toward using it for financial/personal needs. Also, mac products are generally more expensive, which points toward users with generally more wealth available, and thus, more wealth available to be stolen by hackers.

 

[camelCase]

But "PC" stands for "personal computer".
They should get in trouble for playing on the fallacy of amphiboly =/

Regardless of the "popular" definition, a PC isn't a computer with the Windows OS installed =/
Not like my whining here is gonna' fix it anyway =P

 

[Slapshot136]

But "PC" stands for "personal computer".

from apple's website:

It doesn’t get PC viruses.
A Mac isn’t susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers. That’s thanks to built-in defenses in Mac OS X that keep you safe, without any work on your part.

they say PC viruses but then talk about windows viruses..

 

[Accname]

But "PC" stands for "personal computer".
They should get in trouble for playing on the fallacy of amphiboly =/

Regardless of the "popular" definition, a PC isn't a computer with the Windows OS installed =/
Not like my whining here is gonna' fix it anyway =P

What i meant was that PC is usually used to describe a windows os computer and if it is an apple product you call it mac.
I know that pc doesnt stand for windows as a trademark or as any other official term but it is usually used this way.
My professors at the university where i study computer science usually ask as well if you use a mac or pc and they mean ios or windows.

 

[xPass]

Time to switch to Linux :/

 

[seph ir oth]

Time to switch to Linux :/

No one aims at my Fedora OS!

 

[Sajin]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1353879