There have been many articles over the past few weeks, about the various new Flashback variants. This has raised the visibility of the Mac malware situation, which is a good thing as there have been threats actively circulating in the Mac world for years now. Users are being infected, yet security knowledge among Mac users had not kept pace with that reality. Now more people understand that Macs have never been immune to malware.<\/p>\n
Many reputable sources have published thorough, technical articles about the Flashback malware. This post is for those of you who just want a quick article to explain how you can check to see if your Mac is infected, and how you can protect yourself.<\/p>\n
The latest variants of Flashback are silent; you may never be aware that you’re infected unless you specifically look for signs of infection. You don’t have to download strange files, and you don’t have to enter your administrator password for it to install. Surfing to a compromised site is all it takes, and this could be something as innocuous as going to your friend’s blog that hasn’t been updated with the latest security patches. Exploiting a Java vulnerability, Flashback silently installs and downloads components which work in the background whenever an infected computer is connected to the Internet.<\/p>\n
As a result of the recent press, many people want to know how to detect and remove a Flashback infection. As there are now many different variants, this is a complicated question to answer. The consequences of misidentifying and incorrectly modifying your Mac can be serious system instability. There are now several companies that offer free scanner tools that will find and safely remove all known Flashback variants.<\/p>\n