Infiltrator Posted February 27, 2011 Share Posted February 27, 2011 By Robert McMillan February 25, 2011 09:30 PM ET IDG News Service - In a sign that hackers, like everyone else, are taking an interest in everything Apple, researchers at Sophos say they've spotted a new Trojan horse program written for the Mac. It's called the BlackHole RAT (the RAT part is for "remote access Trojan") and it's pretty easy to find online in hacking forums, according to Chet Wisniewski a researcher with antivirus vendor Sophos. There's even a YouTube video demonstration of the program that shows you what it can do. Sophos hasn't seen the Trojan used in any online attacks -- it's more a bare-bones, proof-of-concept beta program right now -- but the software is pretty easy to use, and if a criminal could find a way to get a Mac user to install it, or write attack code that would silently install it on the Mac, it would give him remote control of the hacked machine. BlackHole is a variant of a Windows Trojan called darkComet, but it appears to have been written by a different developer. The darkComet source code is freely available, so it looks like BlackHole's author simply took that code and tweaked it so it would run on the Mac, Wisniewski said. Mac OS X has been gaining market share on Windows lately, and that's starting to make it a more interesting platform for criminals. Wisniewski said that while Mac malware is still very rare, he has seen another Trojan, called HellRTS, circulating on file-sharing sites for pirated Mac software. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9211659/Hacker_writes_easy_to_use_Mac_Trojan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted February 27, 2011 Author Share Posted February 27, 2011 I knew this day was gonna come, it was only a matter of time and finally it happened. The first piece of RAT Trojan written for Macs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted February 27, 2011 Share Posted February 27, 2011 I'm sure there has been many RAT trojans for macs. Just not very popular. *drunk* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted February 27, 2011 Share Posted February 27, 2011 I would say there are many forms of malware across every OS platform, just that MACs have become more mainstream over the last 5 years or so. Its not surprising at all if you think about it. Its the same stuff you see with every operating system. Even uBuntu has a few attacks out there for it because its become the sort of goto linux scapegoat for the average every day user, so the more popular things become, the more attacks we will see for them. Mac, Linux, Windows, makes no difference. 9 times out of 10, its because of uneducated end users falling for some social engineering to get them to run something and then they get pwned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 My guess is microsoft will allow mac to gain the majority of the market, let the virus's run wild and mac who's never delt with virus outbreaks will be crippled forever as users will not find trust in the system... Maybe put and end to the damn mac users saying their virus free, shit pisses me off. Not even linux is free of viruses (though its rare) Very interesting theory, wanna see who's gonna be the winner in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greendixy Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Linux FTW!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seshan Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Considering there are millions of Macs and they are just as easy to target as Windows, I don't see anything changing anytime soon. Every year for years we here about some kind Mac trojan, and all the PC fanboys say that "Mac are going to get hundreds of viruses" Yet, it's been years and we still haven't seen it. There's more to it then people just not "wanting" to target Macs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted March 29, 2011 Author Share Posted March 29, 2011 Considering there are millions of Macs and they are just as easy to target as Windows, I don't see anything changing anytime soon. Every year for years we here about some kind Mac trojan, and all the PC fanboys say that "Mac are going to get hundreds of viruses" Yet, it's been years and we still haven't seen it. There's more to it then people just not "wanting" to target Macs. I don't see Mac computers receiving the same popularity as PCs does. Perhaps someday the Mac popularity will outgrow and then we will start to see more attacks targeting Apple computers. For now PCs are very dominant. So I think it will take time for Apple to win the PC market. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seshan Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 (edited) I don't see Mac computers receiving the same popularity as PCs does. Perhaps someday the Mac popularity will outgrow and then we will start to see more attacks targeting Apple computers. For now PCs are very dominant. So I think it will take time for Apple to win the PC market. There are 93 million Mac users, you are telling me that that's not big enough for virus makers to target them? People try and make it seem like there are only a couple thousand Mac users since Windows has the higher market share. Yeah there may be more Windows users but when we only see 1 person making a trojan for the Mac every year, there is a reason why we see that, and part of it is OS X security features it's had for years, that windows never did until vista/win7. Edited March 29, 2011 by Seshan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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