Tag Archives: Mac

Malware Creators Are Getting Smarter – Watch Out Mac-Heads!

Internet

25 Aug

Here’s a warning to those who think that just because they have a Mac there’s no way a virus will get into their operating system. One of the newest tricks that malware-distributing websites are using is to detect which operating system you are running and then serve you a version of the virus specific for that OS.

One such example was demonstrated by Symantec a few days ago, where blogs offering free streaming online copies of movies that were just released in the theaters try to lure users into installing a fake video plug-in, which is in fact a Trojan:

Interestingly enough, the malicious site to which users are being redirected is serving malware for Windows as well as for Mac OS. This is based on the user-agent string of the browser. For a Windows browser agent it delivers a Trojan intended for the Windows operating system, and for a Mac OS browser agent it delivers a Trojan for the Mac operating system. The following image shows the same URL delivering a Win32 Executable for IE8, as well as a .dmg file for Safari4 when the user agent for the Mac OS is used.

Mac and PC malware

So watch out, Mac-heads! You might need to start learning on how to avoid these traps like us PC users have been doing for a while, because your godly operating systems might not be enough…

(via The Inquisitr)

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