Attacks targeted at users of Apples Mac OSX may be more common than previously thought, according to a post on Kaspersky Lab’s Securelist blog.
A recent spate of attacks that use infected Google Image searches to compromise user machines is also serving up fake anti-virus to users of OSX, according to a post by Kaspersky researcher Vicente Diaz post on Securelist. That may indicate that malicious hackers are diversifying their attacks beyond Windows, hoping to catch the growing population of OSX users, he said.
Evidence of fake antivirus malware that worked on Mac OSX systems first appears in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death when researchers noticed an influx of fake Mac OSX AV expanding its presence online. Further research by Diaz with assistance from the Unmask Parasites blog uncovered a large-scale fake anti-virus campaign that effectively uses Google as a referrer. PC users who fall into the trap are infected with a Trojan program. Mac users are presented with a scareware pop-up claiming that their system is infected. Mac users who click on the ad download the fake AV .zip file.
Diaz hints that criminals just merely need to change the infection method to launch their exploits, like they do with Windows machines.
