Over 600,000 Macs infected with Flashback botnet

According to Dr. Web, a Russian antivirus company, there are more than 600,000 Macs around the world that has been infected by a malware known as the Flashback botnet. This particular malware was specially designed to steal personal information specifically in the US, where there are 274 of such infected Macs located in Cupertino itself – others might call it Apple’s heartland. Dr. Web has estimated that half a million Macs were infected by the Flashback trojan, where over 50% of the infected Macs are in the US alone, with another 20% residing in Canada. This particular malware was originally discovered in September 2011, where it paraded itself as a faux Adobe Flash Player plug-in installer, although in recent months, just like a Pokemon, it has evolved to exploit Java vulnerabilities in order to target Mac systems. There was even a new variant that surfaced over the weekend, where it seemed full well capable of taking advantage of Java vulnerability, and thankfully, Apple did roll out a patch yesterday.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: flashback, Malware