I’m looking forward to reading it.
Steve Jobs biography to ship on October 24th.
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Mac Trojan pretends to be Flash Installer
There’s a new trojan aimed at Mac users. There’s more here at Apple Insider. It’s a good idea to uncheck “Open safe files after downloading” in Safari’s preferences.
Island Trip
On the fourth our friends took us out to a beautiful island. It was very foggy and the sun occasionally came through from above.
I wonder when the next call will be…
From AppleInsider, I see that the MacDefender people have responded to Apple’s security update from earlier in the week.
Apple release anti-malware update…
Here’s a story in Macworld about the update. After getting two or three more calls from clients with this “Mac Defender” junk, it will be interesting to see what happens next. For anyone using OS X, running software update would be a good idea.
More on Mac Malware
Via John Gruber a good piece at Macworld concerning the recent malware attacks on Mac OS X.
New variant of Mac Defender malware on OS X doesn’t require password to install
I haven’t had any more calls about this since I last posted. Hopefully this won’t change with this new development.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/05/25/latest_mac_defender_malware_attacks_mac_os_x_without_password.html
Apple release article on removing MacDefender
Apple release Knowledge Base article on Mac malware…
More calls due to MacProtector/MacDefender
I’ve now had three clients call with this malware installed. Short article here at AppleInsider about this too
Macintosh Malware Alert
Yesterday, for the first time, I got a call from a client with a malware infection on a Macintosh. Within a few minutes of helping them remove it, a friend emailed me a link to this story on Apple Insider.
The gist of what happens is that after viewing a page with JavaScript code, a .ZIP file is downloaded to your computer. If you have “Open ‘safe files’ after downloading” checked in your Safari preferences, the file will automatically open and the installer will run. Some users are even reporting that the installation doesn’t even ask for a password, but I’m not sure about this.
To protect yourself from this sort of attack, do the following:
1. Open Safari
2. Go to Preferences (under the Safari menu)
3. Go to the General Tab
4. At the bottom, uncheck “Open ‘safe files’ after downloading”
5. Close Preferences.
It would also be a good idea to have two accounts on your computer – one set as Administrator to use when installing software, etc. and another, your day to day account, set as a Standard user. I realize that hardly anyone uses this setup and that it can be a bit of a nuisance – but this may become necessary if when exploits like this become more common.