Apple, Mac, MacOS, iOS4, iPad, iPhone and (in)security...

Apple has now brought OS X 10.5 (Leopard) up to speed with Lion, at least when it comes to security. The company issued updates to Leopard users on Monday with Leopard-friendly copies of the Flashback removal tool that was released to Lion users last month, as well as the ability given to Lion users last week to disable out-of-date versions of Flash in Safari.

 

The updates come via the Flashback Removal Security Update and Leopard Security Update 2012-003, both posted to Apple's download site on Monday afternoon (also available via Software Update). Both downloads require OS X 10.5.8 in order to install.

 

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With the recent glut of high profile Mac-based malware like MacDefender and Flashback, it’s easy to forget that Macintosh computers (and Mac malware) have been kicking around for more than thirty years – longer, even, than Windows malware.

 

In fact, the first documented Mac virus actually predated some of the first PC viruses by a good four years. While conventional wisdom has always assumed that Macs are inherently safer than PCs, wider adoption of Macs in recent years has given rise to new and more sophisticated threats, with many suggesting that Apple’s honeymoon with malware authors may be over.

 

As this slideshow of Mac Malware through the years shows, however, Apple machines are no strangers to malicious software.

 

Read more and don't forget "Nobody is perfect ;)"...

 

New details about the extent of the Mac-specific Flashback malware epidemic emerged today.

At least two security firms that estimated a significant drop in Mac systems infected with the datastealing Flashback trojan admit they made erroneous calls.

 

The company said its ===> count may have been distorted because a third-party sinkhole that used a “tarpitting” technique to prevent the malware from attempting to connect to subsequent domains, such as the one set up by Symantec to tally the number of infected Macs, Liam O Murchu, director of operations at the company's Security Response Center, said in an email Monday to SCMagazine.com. <===

 

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The massive Flashback botnet of Mac machines relied on hacked and malware-rigged WordPress blog sites to spread and infect users, according to Kaspersky Lab researchers.

 

Flashback Slashed
We now know where the infection originated, and we have a number of removal tools available to get rid of the infection. But there is some disagreement on exactly how many Macs are still infected with Flashback, nearly two weeks later. Kaspersky researchers said a little over 30,000 Macs are still infected, as of Apr. 19. The biggest drop in the infections came after Apple released its final Java update to patch the flaw and remove the malware, according to Kaspersky Lab.

 

On the other hand, Symantec researchers claimed there were still 140,000 infected machines.

"The statistics from our sinkhole are showing declining numbers on a daily basis. However, we had originally believed that we would have seen a greater decline in infections at this point in time, but this has proven not to be the case," Symantec said.

 

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Kate Bevan: For too long Mac users have been complacent about malware – it's time they woke up to the threat from trojans like Flashback...

 

===> Mac users should 'become responsible members of the wider computing community.' <===

 

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Are you still running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard?

If so, you have some very important critical security patches to install - helping to protect your Mac from malware threats.

 

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Fresher students at University of Iowa lately were unable to access the other UI computers when the Flashback virus reportedly infected the campus network.

According to fresh warnings by security vendor Intego, another Java vulnerability is attacking Macs that haven’t been patched with Apple’s Java for OS X Lion 2012-002 and Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 7, released earlier this month.

 

Meanwhile, the security analysts warned that many copies of older versions of MS Word haven’t been patched and are being infected.

 

The Word vulnerability was patched by Microsoft several years ago, however, many Mac users haven’t bothered to install the patches or have turned off the automated Microsoft updates installer. According to Integro, MS Word 2004 and 2008 are vulnerable, but Word 2011 is not. In addition, the older .DOC format is vulnerable, not the .DOCX format.

 

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The Flashback malware threat for OS X is on a steep decline, but still underscores that Mac systems are not immune to threats. Read this blog post by Topher Kessler on MacFixIt.

A new Trojan known as “Sabpab” could hurt Mac users who run Java and Microsoft Word. Security researchers are warning users to make sure their computers

 

===> have the latest software updates from both Apple and Microsoft, <=== and to use anti-virus software.

 

In some cases, manual removal of Sabpab may be needed.

 

Word about Sabpab comes on the heels of another nasty piece of malware, Flashback, that infected up to as many as 600,000 Macs, security experts said, by exploiting a vulnerability in Java software.

 

Apple last week issued a software-base removal tool for that malware, which can be used by criminals to steal personal information, including passwords.

 

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