Mac trojan OSX.RSPlug.A

01 November 2007 · 1 comment

Mac users currently have little to worry about by way of viruses and malware. That’s little, not nothing. Macworld reports today on a new Trojan in the wild — a little thing called OSX.RSPlug.A: First Look: Trojan Horse warning: What you need to know: … a new piece of OS X malware has been discovered. [...]

 

Mac users currently have little to worry about by way of viruses and malware. That’s little, not nothing. Macworld reports today on a new Trojan in the wild — a little thing called OSX.RSPlug.A: First Look: Trojan Horse warning: What you need to know:

… a new piece of OS X malware has been discovered. … Your machine could be infected if you’ve recently gone looking for some, um, less-than-flattering pictures of Britney Spears. Thinking you’ve found what you’re looking for, you click a video to watch it, only to see a message stating that your machine lacks the necessary codec. A disk image will then start downloading, and (depending on the settings on your machine) may then mount and launch an installer which asks for your admin password.

The Macworld article provides plenty more detail about what to check for, how to fix things and so on, so go and read up about it.

They go on to give some good advice:

As always, the best way to avoid these things is to not install software from untrusted sources—especially if it comes as an installer package and requests your administrator’s password!

Be careful out there.

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Oliver 02 November 2007 at 11:40 32

I’m just amazed this thing doesn’t come up on your Dashboard with a flashy icon saying “Hello I’m RSplug your friendly Mac trojan”. This is like a normal Mac OS X app that you need to install. All the security functions of Mac OS X are still functioning perfectly and there is no chance you might catch this unawares.

The only security hole this “trojan” exploits is not inside your Mac! Like with any sickness the main part of prevention is still using your brain. You wouldn’t go and do two weeks holiday in an African village known for Ebola would you?! So apply the same reasoning when being online.

I wish there’d be such a hype for every Windows malware/virus/trojan that was found. The mags and websites wouldn’t contain much else. Again this is just another hype around Apple and Macs just like the stuff Greenpeace is doing. I’m so sick and tried of all these free-rides.

Cheers

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