Mac Malware Outbreak Is Bigger than 'Conficker'

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/253403/mac_malware_outbreak_is_bigger_than_conficker.html

by mitchie_luna • 14 years ago

36 12 14 years ago

pcworld.com

tar2• 14 years ago

This is a very misleading title.

coderdude• 14 years ago

That's weird, an article about Macs that isn't being up-voted fervently. (I kid, I kid.)

Interestingly enough, by "bigger" they just mean that a larger percentage of Macs are infected compared to the percentage of Windows machines that were infected by Conficker (when compared to the total number of machines in use on each side).

tar2• 14 years ago

Probably because it paints Macs in a negative light.

chicagobob• 14 years ago

Hmmmm ... I just read a blog post (Ars??) that upto 1% of Macs could be infected.

What percentage of Window machines did Conficker infect? 30% 50%? I seem to remember it was a huge percentage.

fjarlq2• 14 years ago

Estimates vary... here's one:

"It's estimated that at its peak Conficker infected more than 11 million PCs globally."

-- http://www.sophos.com/en-us/security-news-trends/reports/sec...

Numbers in the range 15-25 million were also tossed around. It's hard to estimate.

Steve Ballmer expected the Windows installed base to cross the 1 billion mark in mid-2008: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-expect-windows...

Conficker peaked around January 2009 I believe. At 10 million that would be 1% of 1 billion.

aw3c2• 14 years ago

Stupid linkbait headline (on the source, submitter is not to blame). Their first paragraph clarifies:

(...) the Flashback Trojan botnet is even bigger than the massive Conficker botnet… relatively speaking.

That's all there is to this "article".

ghshephard• 14 years ago

I take issue with one of the claims in this article, 'Apple isn’t to blame for the threat. The vulnerability is in Java, not Mac OS X' if Apple decides to ship a component with their OS (as they do with Java) and takes responsibility for upgrading the components - then it is their blame if they delay the patch for a month and allow all these additional machines to be infected.

Hopefully we'll see a 'malware removal' patch from Apple in the next five days or so.

fjarlq2• 14 years ago

I wonder if the infection disables Software Update.

phamilton• 14 years ago

I thought they stopped shipping Java with the OS.

Someone• 14 years ago

Technically: yes.

Instead of Java, Mac OS ships with a stub that, when launched, offers to download Java from Apple's servers.

sxcurry• 14 years ago

A lot of these reports are based on data from Russian antivirus vendor Doctor Web. Does anyone have any information on Doctor Web, and how valid their counting methods are?

mikenon• 14 years ago

Kaspersky confirmed the number. https://www.securelist.com/en/blog/208193441/Flashfake_Mac_O...

Mac Malware Outbreak Is Bigger than 'Conficker'

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