First Mac OS X trojan in the wild

by Jordan Running Feb 16th 2006

It was nothing if not inevitable: Mac Rumors is reporting that the first virus targeting Mac OS X has been spotted in the wild. The site is careful to classify the virus as a trojan because it doesn't exploit any hole in the OS but instead tricks the victim into executing it. The trojan spreads by masquerading as an archive called "latestpics.tgz" containing screenshots of OS X 10.5 Leopard. The archive contains a files presents themselves with a standards JPEG icon but is in fact an executable that, when opened, infects other executable files on the machine. Once executed, the trojan spreads itself via iChat. Sophos has named the virus "OSX/Leap-A" and given it a low prevalence rating.

[Via Waxy.org]

Tags: apple, leap, mac, osx, security, trojan, virii, virus

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

tank said 11:59AM on 2-16-2006

The OS flags this as an application and asks for your administrator password before launching. Anybody stupid enough to enter their password after double clicking on what looks like a jpg deserves to be infected.

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