Mac Flashback Malware hits the Philippines

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief April 6, 2012 · 1 min read

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According to Russian anti-virus company Dr. Web, around 0.1% of the 550,000 Macs infected so far by the Flashback malware are from the Philippines. That’s only about 550 Filipino Mac users but you could be one of them.

In April 4, Dr. Web reported that the spread of the Trojan BackDoor.Flashback has reached over 550,000 computers running Mac OS X (around 550 of which were detected to come from the Philippines).

Infection is done via the browser that downloads and installs a plugin to run a Java-applet containing an exploit.

Several sites known to host this malware include ustreambesttv.rr.nu, ustreamtvonline.rr.nu, ustream-tv.rr.nu and ustream.rr.nu among others. Right now, if you are using a Mac or running Mac OS X, the only way to know if you have been infected is to open Terminal and run these commands:

defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment
defaults read /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment
defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

CNet has a more comprehensive instructions here on how to detect and clean up your Mac in case you’re infected.

Source: Dr. Web

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

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24 Comments

Kulam · 14 years ago

Apple did good to contain the damage. I do not like the MAC OS,but you guys got to admit, its probably the best OS out there bar none :)

ZAYNE · 14 years ago

I guess the Malware Victims are the ones that carelessly press Link without Checking….. BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE US MAC USERS STUPID (A Stereotype AntiMac would probably say that we are, Im just doinbg the favor of answering before they comment )

Fshumayrqan · 14 years ago

Its not the link, from java update, the hacker took advantages. so if you update the java last week you might have it. But mac already updated twice dis wk lng.

Fshumayrqan · 14 years ago

dalawang beses na nagupdate ang apple sa isang linggo, but my mac free of this shit, besides hindi na kailangan ng antivirus sa mac os but if you are virus freak then u need it and its just a waste of money.

lui alexander · 14 years ago

thank god i am not infected!

orgl · 14 years ago

i don’t care haha XD

ZAYNE · 14 years ago

Yes its a malware but its not a virus check out the diff but thanks to apple they react fast in this kind of situation they were able to act on it quickly check it out http://9to5mac.com/2012/04/05/in-the-wake-of-the-flashback-trojan-apple-quietly-puts-out-an-updated-java-security-patch/

Jesus · 14 years ago

@qwerty Hehehe! Link lang yan. Hindi naman galing porn. Link lang na sinend. Hahahaha!

showbiz · 14 years ago

Thanks for the info. Didn’t know that macs can also be infected with any type of virus/malware.

ZAYNE · 14 years ago

APPLE Has Reasons Of worrying if they dont fix it. though it is NOT a VIRUS it can still to do harm :) and those people who are infected they are just careless on what they are downloading. TRUST is the first thing you do in the iNternet ask your self do you trust what your downloading others just seem careless and download what they think could help…WRONG!!! But im not just one sided Apple Needs to beef up their Security but at the same time making their consumers think it’s still safe using MAC…Isn’t that one of the reasons that others buy APPLE :)