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Apple Has Shut Down the First Fully-Functional Mac OS X Ransomware (techcrunch.com)

Posted by timothy on from the functional-seems-a-polite-word-for-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Apple has shut down what appears to have been the first, fully-functional ransomware targeting Mac computers. This particular form of cyber threat involves malware that encrypts the data on your personal computer so you can no longer access it. Afterwards, the hackers request that you pay them in a hard-to-trace digital currency — in this case, bitcoin — in order for you to retrieve your files. This ransomware, called KeRanger, was first reported by researchers at Palo Alto Networks. They also noted that Apple has now revoked the abused certificate that was used in the attack and updated its built-in anti-malware system XProtect with a new signature to protect customers.

5 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. so much for the walled garden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I thought certs where going to protect us from this mess. It is nice that Apple yanked this cert, but what is to stop another cert from being bought and used to do the same damn thing?

    1. Re:so much for the walled garden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Agreed and it's one of the major reasons I switched from Microsoft Windows. There's far, far fewer attack vectors with Apple because it's basically unix underneath and they have a paywall for developer certs. And when there is a problem you don't have to have your systems exposed to attack until patch tuesday rolls around (that's if Microsoft ever releases one).

      Kudos to Apple, 24 hours and poof, the problem was mitigated. Microsoft should adopt the same model.but it would require a herculean effort to get their products up to the same standard of quality.

    2. Re:so much for the walled garden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Yawn. When Microsoft implements something like Apple's SIP then wake me up. Until then it's just a toy OS held together by bailing wire and will always be open to trivial attacks.

      No one sane would think that Windows could ever reach the level of security that a *nix based system has. We have 15+ years of proof behind us now.

      (Btw, different AC, not the troll you were responding to)

  2. Apple can't have any any one cutting in to there b by mmiscool · · Score: 0, Troll

    Apple can't have any one else cutting in to there business.

  3. That make anyone else nervous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    So Apple has the ability to remotely disable software that's running on Macs. Currently they're using that to "protect users" but what happens when they decide that you shouldn't be allowed to run third party software at all and start blocking it?

    They've already started by making it so that even root is blocked from editing files in locations such as /etc, /usr, and /bin, and blocks root from removing "important system apps" like iTunes and Photos (both of which have third party competitors).

    Can you say "walled garden?"