Flashback Attack on Mac May be Biggest Ever; Take Action

A new computer virus has latched on to Mac computers, infecting nearly a half million uses already. The malware is called Flashback.

This malware is associated with Java. Apple released a new version for Snow Leopard and Lion, so updated OSX 10.6 or 10.7 are safe from the virus. However, Java has not been included on the latest versions.

Reports indicate the highest number of Mac users infected are in the United States, Canada, England and Australia. Officials claim this virus has actually been around since 2011, when Apple stopped using Oracle’s releases of Java. Apparently Oracle patched the problem with Java, but Apple only issued a patch on April 3 and a second patch on April 5.

Several experts have said that this appears to be one of the largest-ever attacks on Macs.

Mac users listen up! Apple has released a tool that removes the Flashback Trojan from infected Mac computers, according to Tech Crunch. Apple has been dealing with this “Mac virus,” which infected some 650,000 Mac laptops, since September of last year.
With the new removal tool, Apple is now able to disable Java applets by default (on some versions of OS X) and can now remove the Flashback Trojan from infected Macs.

According to a statement on Apple’s website:

This Java security update removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware.

This update also configures the Java web plug-in to disable the automatic execution of Java applets. Users may re-enable automatic execution of Java applets using the Java Preferences application. If the Java web plug-in detects that no applets have been run for an extended period of time it will again disable Java applets.

Java for OS X Lion 2012-003 delivers Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_31 and supersedes all previous versions of Java for OS X Lion.

This update is recommended for all Mac users with Java installed.

To read the full article, visit http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/13/apple-releases-mac-flashback-trojan-removal-tool/.