Lions and Tigers and Trojans Oh My

Saw this story today at Cnet and thought it might be time to once again remind people... beware of trojans - no matter what type of computer you use.

New MACDefender malware discovered for OS X

Naturally we have the people who hate Apple all saying with that lovely little sneer... "I thought Apple people said there is no malware for Mac."   

Ho-hum.  I have never said that.  However, this is not a virus.  It is a trojan malware that is using phishing techniques to get onto systems.  Anyone with any computer is susceptible to phishing scams. 

This is a multistep process that you have to allow and even enter your system password and give it permission to install itself.  So it's not like you open a website or an email and "bam" you have something.

While this threat is a new attack attempt on OS X users, its threat level is relatively low because it does require a fair amount of user interaction to install the malware. You have to first provide the correct search terms to the search engine, and then proceed with the installation by manually clicking the buttons in the installer window. As long as you avoid doing this for software you have not purposefully downloaded, then you should be good to go.

If you use a Mac and you browse with Safari - please please please - go to the Safari menu --> Preferences --> General tab and UNCHECK the box at the bottom that says "open Safe files after downloading". 

You should never allow something to download and open itself.  Ever.  Even if you downloaded it because you wanted it.  Your computer does NOT know the difference between what you downloaded because you wanted it and what got downloaded because a hacker put it on a web page to auto download.

It's easy enough to find the file you downloaded either on your desktop or in your download folder then click it to open.  This will save you much grief. Auto open of anything is much like the stupid settings in Windows and Mac that don't show you file extensions.  Yet another idiot method to get crap on your system before you have a chance to stop it.

Anyhow - that's my public service announcement for the day.

If I can find the time I am working on some posts about how to protect your computer online so you don't get bitten when it can be avoided.  Maybe one day I will get the chance to post it.  All I need is some time.  Ha - right.

Posted by: Teresa in WebTech at 11:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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