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A Look into the Most Notorious Mac Threats

Posted on April 3rd, 2012 in Cybercrime, Trend Labs by TrendLabs | Be the first to comment |

The mass appeal of Apple products is undeniable. Every product or software release is often anticipated and greeted with much fanfare. Its latest release, the OS X Mountain Lion, is no exception. Although the software has yet to be released, there have already been articles written about its features.

One of the more-touted features of Mountain Lion is Gatekeeper, a whitelisting approach that helps users from downloading bad apps. This feature restricts whether applications can run based solely on where they were downloaded from. Gatekeeper is planned to have 3 levels – only allows apps from the app store, only allow from apps store or signed by trusted developers, or no restrictions. While the feature is well-intentioned, it will only be a matter of time when cybercriminals find ways to bypass or use this feature to their advantage.

This inclusion of such a security feature might be come as a surprise to some users as they might still believe that Macs are not at risk when it comes to malware. In fact, we recently detected new Mac malware that disguises itself as an image file. It drops another malicious file capable of executing commands that involve getting information from the infected system.

While the number of Mac malware isn’t as high as those for Windows, this doesn’t mean that Mac malware should be taken lightly. Like its Windows counterparts, Mac malware can do serious damage to an infected system. In our infographic, “Rotten to the Core,” we take a look at the most notable—and notorious—Mac malware over the previous years.