First Scareware For the Mac

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property sends us news from F-Secure of what they claim is the first rogue cleaning tool for the Mac. MacSweeper is a Mac version of Cleanator, hosted from a colo somewhere in the Ukraine. The article points out that the company's About page is lifted verbatim from Symantec's site. With the Mac's market share closing in on double digits, perhaps it's not surprising to see the platform targeted with crapware as PCs have been for years. The F-Secure author adds as a footnote that a journalist said to him something you don't hear every day: "I visited the macsweeper.com website. I know I probably shouldn't have but I used a Windows PC so I knew I wouldn't get infected."

Comments

gamespot gave it 11 out of 10

[User 956]

With the Mac's market share closing in on double digits, perhaps it's not surprising to see the platform targeted with crapware as PCs have been for years.

I didn't realize Kane & Lynch had been announced for the Mac platform

Re:Not the smartest journo

[Chyeld]

Real security experts telnet to port 80 and hand craft their HTTP requests. It's the only way to be sure!

Re:Cross platform spyware!

[Shados]

Write Once, Piss People Off Everywhere?

fixed that for you

[joeyspqr]

"I visited the macsweeper.com website. I know I probably shouldn't have but I used a Mac so I knew I wouldn't get infected."

oh wait ...

Re:Oh no!

[moderatorrater]

Would you prefer "Proclaiming", or "acting all snobbish while saying", or "falsely believing"?

Re:Not the smartest journo

[MrKevvy]

re: "If the site hosts mac malware then it is a pretty good bet they already have established "businesses" in the field of windows malware."

If the site was detecting the user agent or using some other method of determining platform and delivering targeted malware based on it, I doubt they would have also been delivering a fake Mac scan to a Windows browser as they did in the article.

Re:Not the smartest journo

[somersault]

at 56000 baud

double digits?

[BeanThere]

There are now 10 or more Mac users?

Re:double digits?

[mcpkaaos]

Practicing your base 2, I see.

First Scareware?

[Macrat]

I thought Symantec released the first Scareware for Macs?

Re:Not the smartest journo

[Gideon Fubar]

you can't get 56000 through an acoustic coupler..

Re:Not the smartest journo

[Phroggy]

Get off my lawn!

Re:Not the smartest journo

[halcyon1234]

you can't get 56000 through an acoustic coupler..

Who needs that newfangled junk. I can whistle at 56k, and do the binary in my head

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Until the programmers can prevent stupid users from infecting their systems,

This is an under-appreciated benefit of a less user friendly operating system: fewer "stupid users" will be interested in using it -- at least to any deep extent -- thereby leaving those that do in a safer community.

Re:Hi i'm MacSweeper Developer, listen to me

[Lewrker]

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Ba Ba Baa, Nigeria

Re:Hi i'm MacSweeper Developer, listen to me

[MacSweeper]

Expecting you to be, next question.

Re:Oh no!

[novakyu]

Stupid users trump all possible security measures (except locking them out of the system for their own good, which isn't really feasible), and there's no shortage of them. It sounds like we need a friendly user helper agent that will remind users that what they are about to do could be dangerous for their data and prevent them from performing such actions. I am thinking that this agent should be enabled by default, cannot be deactivated except by calling customer support to get the deactivation key, and to inspire user confidence, it should look like something that they see everyday. Like a paper clip.

Re:Oh no!

[Just Some Guy]

I maintain a strict policy of which sites I use each browser for, where I take cookies from, and I browse sketchy shit only inside vmware and restore from a clean image frequently. But I'm still vulnerable to all sorts of attacks

I understand that meth addiction is difficult to kick, but I urge you to please consider it for your health, both physical, and - particularly - mental. With time the paranoia will subside and you will be able to return to rational, productive behavior. Remember, we're here for you.