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OS X Trojan Horse

Newspaper current event by VnutZ on 02 November 2007, tagged as hacking, apple, os x, and virus

For the longest time, Apple users were relatively immune to the malware woes of their Windows counterparts due to the smaller market share held by OS X. But the days of security by obscurity may have come to an end. On Halloween, researchers discovered a trojan horse, masquerading as a video CODEC, that gives full remote control of the computer to remote hackers. At the moment, the OSX.RSPlug.A Trojan only downloads when OS X is detected by particular pornography sites, promising to enable users to view video. A user still must acknowledge and install the download; however, it was packaged well enough to fool the typical browser. Fortunately, this first generation trojan is both easy to detect and remove.

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OS or User by markmcb :: NR7

I'm on the fence with this one. In my mind, an OS has to be hacked without human help to really discredit the OS. For example if I turn on file sharing and you are able to take over my system, that's on the OS as it was only supposed to share files. However, if a user downloads something, acknowledges it, and then installs it, it's really on that person. Especially if the thing came from a porn/shady source.

It'd be like blaming an OS after you went to trojanvirus.com and unknowingly installed a virus. Ultimately, any OS will do what the user says, no matter how dumb.

Posted 02 November 2007, Hide, Reply