New Mac trojan. Beware

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/Online-game-disguised-as-Space-Invaders-hits-Mac-users-with-Trojan/article/157034/

Online game disguised as Space Invaders hits Mac users with Trojan

Mac users have been warned of a new threat cleverly disguised as a classic video game.

Symantec's senior information developer Ben Nahorney claimed that a Trojan downloaded, detected as Trojan.Loosemaque, is designed to look like a Space Invaders/Galaga style game. However, for every alien ship the user destroys, the program deletes a file from the home directory.

The latest online game is a disguised threat to spread via social networking. Symantec claimed that online games are increasingly becoming a target for virus creators, and this threat shows it is a possibility regardless of the platform.

Nahorney said: “Threats targeting the Macintosh platform are much less common than those targeting Windows. The same can be said about video games, where Windows is the dominant platform of the two. Combining games and malware has happened before, but a Mac game performing malicious activities? That's something relatively new.

“What's interesting is that the author of this ‘game' flat-out says what it does on his website. Reading through the author's description, it seems that he has created this game/threat as some sort of artistic project. The aliens are your files and there are consequences for ‘killing' them. However, if you die, the game is supposed to delete itself.

“Each file of your home directory appears only once, and the author seems to suggest that not destroying any ships may end up with positive consequences. (We were unable to discover if this was the case, as the game crashes before reaching the end.)”





Again. This is another file that must be installed by the user.

 

Meh, This isn't that new, and it's not really a threat. Unless you download it and want to have your files deleted. :|

Here is a video.

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That is the coolest game ever.
Bored deleting files? Why not just blast them away

 

I didn't know it showed it while it was happening. lol that is great, but really not a trojan that is done unknowingly at all.

 

true but very easy to re-code and not tell or warn you

 

Why bother when you can use SL's built-in feature of deleting ALL of your user data?

 

Isn't that true of most viruses?

 

I do not really care about virus. I am happy with Mac

 

Wow that's really creative.. Are there like special powerups in the game you can take to delete files faster?

 

you know I heard something like that about a year ago ... then the guys kid installed a web game and next thing he knew he was a victom of identity theft and it was a complete nightmare.

 

Yeah, but you have to play the game to get your files deleted. So you can't exactly blame the virus, if you're not smart enough to read the warning beforehand and keep playing.

 

its a proof of concept type application. most 5th graders could recode it to not warn you its about to delete files, install a keylogger or any number of malicious little things. once you accept the install and give it you password you have just exposed yourself to the developer

 

I wouldn't really call this a trojan. It was specifically designed to do this, and there's a warning on the site and at the beginning of the game. Not to mention it doesn't spread any of your information to anyone else nor does it spread itself to other machines from your machine.

 

Symantec and the other Anti<--Stupid People install Crap, companies have not been able to tap the Apple Market.

Sound like they are grasping at straws, Mac users as a whole understand not to install crap.

Having some Anti-Crap hogging your system, to me, is far worse than not using my computer at all.

 

Have to disagree I have had to work on MANY machines where an operator installed some cool game, some neat app or clicked on an e-mail link and said yes to everything. yes SOME surf quite safely but others have a false sense of security that "hey we can do whatever we want and not have an issue!! ".

I have experience in both data theft and identity theft from OS-X users and YES it does happen as has been demontstrated repeatedly at blackhat and in the wild. Not all computer users are careful on ANY platform

 

I have to agree with Crazycanuk. If any user is going to be complacent about internet security, it's going to be a Mac user, which can make even something as innocent as this, dangerous.

 

Or a Linux user, many of my friends feel they are perfectly safe. Though in general my Linux friends seem a little more informed about security to begin with.

 

Most Linux users are going to be much more tech savvy than the average Mac user. So yeah I agree.

 

Saw this over at 9to5 mac. interesting and some more wood for the fire.

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This looks kind of fun.

 

That's one thing I don't get, Yeah Mac users are still a small market share, but that market share is still millions of Mac users. Yet, all we see are these lame Trojans.

 

Lame trojans and backdoors are preferred now, why take down a system when you can add it to a botnet, steal personal information or banking information or use it for other nefarious benifits. And when SOME users just blindly install anything that looks neat, or dont pay attention... they get hit too.

Let me toss a little more on the fire .... do I agree with everything they say in these articles .. not all but I am SURE willing to listen ESPECIALLY after dealing with a few macs which HAVE been infected or controlled

http://www.dailytech.com/Another+Major+Mac+Computer+Security+Flaw+Discovered/article15832.htm

and NO not all of the found holes are fixed yet

 

There is nothing inherently superior about OS X or Mac users that will prevent their machines from becoming infected with a virus.

As with all OS'es, practise safe browsing with software and/or hardware firewalls and use anti-virus software.

 

More than anything, this proves that if Virus writers ever decided to go after mac users in a big way, it's very possible. Something which many mac users have claimed just could NOT be done, (even though it's been proven time and again). The Mac's advantage is that while there are millions of users, Windows users by far still make the biggest target and will for years.

 

But But I thought macs were invulnerable to viruses???????? The commercial said so.

On topic that is unfortunate as space invaders is a cool game. Is it available at a popular Apple download site?

 

There is a difference between a Trojan and a Virus.

 

what commercial? Apple has never made a commercial that said anything close to that...

 

Of course it's possible. Any OS that allows third-party programs can run viruses.

 

I know that and you know that but a lot of Mac users deny the possibility. Crazy, I know.

 

an actual virus would be difficult to propagate on Macs. Some people use the term "virus" to mean any type of malware, when they should be saying malware. Malware is easy to do on any system, no matter what... as long as a real person is using it.

 

I disagree. I think a well written virus that took advantage of say...iTunes would work quite well. Or perhaps propagated through an Apple chain email.

I'm not sure what you mean by "malware is easy to do on any system, no matter what". That's not necessarily true at all.

 

How so? Malware is any software that does something you don't want it to... in a negative way... trojans are very easy to make. Just claim is a program that does X, and when someone goes, "oh I want that!" and runs it, it really does Y, and screws them over.

 

This mostly depends on how savvy the user is, so I still disagree. This still depends on what OS we're talking about too. Linux is much more difficult than Windows. I just think your blanket statement isn't accurate.

 

making malware doesn't depend on the user. I never said its easy to infect a machine with malware, just that its easy to make... sorry if I was not clear.