Trojan för Mac ute! 31 okt 07

I'm sick of anti-virus companies reporting on supposed OS X viruses and trojans.

The latest anti-virus company expressing its greed was Intego, who reported about an OS X trojan that is supposedly out in the wild redirecting unsuspecting browsers to fake sites stealing their credit card info. Woo-hoo!

This trojan is an 8 year old kid dressed in a witch costume. So fitting to Halloween!

Let's see how you can get infected:

1. You have to visit an eerie link to a no-name porn site.
2. You have to believe that the video content on this site is so unique it requires a special codec.
3. You have to be convinced that this codec is so damn special it can not be downloaded from Apple or any other trusted location, but only from this shady site.
4. You have to conclude that the only way to get laid tonight is to download the dmg of the codec and install it on your machine.
5. You are confident enough to give your admin password to have the installer run.
6. Despite the fact that your DNS settings have now been changed and your browser takes you to random sites, you keep surfing and shopping giving your passwords and credit card details anywhere.

Right. Very likely and truly dangerous scenario. If somebody is stupid enough to do all this, he won't even realize he's in trouble, would he?

It's the equivalent of going to a dark bar in the worst part of your town. Paying a random person for a certain white powder. Being surprised you got bubbles coming out of your nostrils. Realizing you're not even hallucinating.

Now, I'm not saying that AV companies are useless or that OS X is infallible. But I do think it's dangerous to report on false stories, because it destroys the AV company's reputation. And, it is destructive to the Mac community, because people become immune to the announcements and won't take them seriously when the real shit hits the fan.

[i]I'm sick of anti-virus companies reporting on supposed OS X viruses and trojans.

The latest anti-virus company expressing its greed was Intego, who reported about an OS X trojan that is supposedly out in the wild redirecting unsuspecting browsers to fake sites stealing their credit card info. Woo-hoo!

This trojan is an 8 year old kid dressed in a witch costume. So fitting to Halloween!

Let's see how you can get infected:

1. You have to visit an eerie link to a no-name porn site.
2. You have to believe that the video content on this site is so unique it requires a special codec.
3. You have to be convinced that this codec is so damn special it can not be downloaded from Apple or any other trusted location, but only from this shady site.
4. You have to conclude that the only way to get laid tonight is to download the dmg of the codec and install it on your machine

5. You are confident enough to give your admin password to have the installer run.

6. Despite the fact that your DNS settings have now been changed and your browser takes you to random sites, you keep surfing and shopping giving your passwords and credit card details anywhere.

Right. Very likely and truly dangerous scenario. If somebody is stupid enough to do all this, he won't even realize he's in trouble, would he?

It's the equivalent of going to a dark bar in the worst part of your town. Paying a random person for a certain white powder. Being surprised you got bubbles coming out of your nostrils. Realizing you're not even hallucinating.

Now, I'm not saying that AV companies are useless or that OS X is infallible. But I do think it's dangerous to report on false stories, because it destroys the AV company's reputation. And, it is destructive to the Mac community, because people become immune to the announcements and won't take them seriously when the real shit hits the fan.