back to article Apple ships removal tool for Mac-menacing malware

Apple has updated its Mac operating system to protect against a malicious application that has been hoodwinked untold numbers of users by masquerading as legitimate security software that warns they have serious infections on their machines. Apple issued Security Update 2011-003 on Tuesday to update Mac OS X to detect for …

COMMENTS

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  1. Wensleydale Cheese

    Outta luck if you are still on Leopard

    Security Update 2011-003 is for Snow Leopard only.

    Is it time for Leopard users to abandon Safari then?

    1. J. R. Hartley

      title

      Steve - he need yo money

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      PEBCAK

      Abandoning Safari mitigates autorun, but gullible users will still try to install it manually.

      In the end, user education is still the key.

    3. Gritzwally Philbin

      Pretty Much..

      I've given Safari the heave-ho and ONLY use it for downloading .dmg update files from Apple when the Software Update throws a wobbler on me. Other than that, it's just been too cranky for my tastes and often acts surly and has a strange habit of indexing or writing *something* on my hard drives.. I mean it goes away when I quit the program and it's no harm done, but WTF?

      99% of the time when I'm general surfing, I'll use Camino. I really like it, it's fast loading pages and has a nice feature set - it reminds me of the old Internet Explorer for Mac - and I *know* people laugh at this, but at one time, a very short time at that, it was one of the better Mac products MS made.

      If I hit the adult sites, of course it's Firefox with the security add-ons running.

      Chrome gives me the clammy sweats in general.

    4. Rich 30

      Safari for Youtube

      I use safari for ripping youtube videos. (Open Activities, double click on bit file thats downloading, it saves to your HDD. Or if it tries to open the video on its own in a new window, copy url, post it into bit.ly (or similar) right click, save file as)

      Other than that, i use Chrome. It has the best adverts, and i like google. Thats right kids, i like google. I find the price they charge for their excellent products acceptable.

      1. ThomH

        @Rich 30

        ... or you could just copy and paste the file URL from the 'Activity' window to the 'Downloads' window. No need to include bit.ly or anything similar, whatever happens. Or install the ClickToFlash extension (from about halfway down the page you go to if you click 'Get Extensions'), right click on the youtube video and select 'Download Video'.

        Then go back to doing whatever you were really browsing for in whatever browser you like.

        1. Rich 30
          Pint

          cheers

          have a beer

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Mike Flugennock
    Coat

    "Erratic Behavior"

    "A ZDNet blogger recently counted 200 separate discussion threads on discussions.apple.com in which users complained of infections that caused their Macs to behave erratically..."

    That's not an infection; that's Safari. (Oh, I don't know, though...)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Not to mention

    The aforementioned zdnet blogger is a complete and utter ....

  5. xyz Silver badge
    Angel

    Same shit, different diety.

    You mean that the Jobsian utopia has been sullied and everything isn't pure in the garden of Eden? I can't believe it! Surely the great Jobs will smite forth those who dirty His purity with the usual salvo of corporate angels (oops lawyers). Perthaps He should have realised why his predecessor (God 1.0 ) needed Loki is the first place. These hackers get everywhere.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Big Jobs

      'Trust in my and my products and you will remain unsullied and pure. The devil will not enter your iDevice.

      Now, let us pray: "The Mac is pure, the Mac is holy, the Mac cannot be attacked by forces of evil, we are safe and pure and clean anywhere, everywhere and anywhen."

      I wonder how many Mac users were packed and ready for the Rapture[tm].

      (icon of Troll with coat required)

    2. ThomH

      @xyz

      The inclusion of an anti-malware tool with versions of the OS since 2009 — per the article — would appear to make your comment a little late.

  6. bex

    safari

    Having a windows pc being used to firefox and coming to the Mac there is something less than satisfying about safari, so it never gets used on my machine.

    Because of firefox's erratic memory use on os x I mostly use chrome

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    All well and good, except...

    Sophos found that the tool does not quite do the trick.

    http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/05/31/apple-releases-update-to-protect-against-macdefender/

    Enough said then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It does do the trick

      From the review it clearly did everything that it should: detected and removed the trojan and installed a new system that updates the definitions daily.

      The rest is just FUD from a company that's trying to sell their own security solutions.

  8. twunt

    Dont worry Metavisor

    Sophos AV for mac is free.

    Its not a conspiracy.

    1. Ed 11
      FAIL

      File Vault

      Unfortunately it doesn't play nicely with File Vault and I am not able to shut down and reboot my Mac if Sophos is installed - it freezes before the desktop loads. From the support forums it appears I'm not the only person who has this problem and Sophos have done naff all about it in months. It might be free software but that's quite a bug to leave unfixed.

      ClamXAV it is for me, shame, as Sophos appears to be a slicker option.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Ed 11

        Have spoken to an OSX Dev (not working at Apple), but it's a known Apple bug (reproducible even without Sophos Mac installed).

    2. Lord Lien
      Gimp

      R'ly...

      (in your best sarcastic English butler voice) .. & I do believe Sir is speaking poppy cock!

      Gimp icon.... we all love a gimp.

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