Wow, even the viruses on the Mac look nice
Check out this video from YouTuber TheEdBott showing the Mac Guard/ Mac Defender virus installing with no password. Having never actually seen the virus, I must say, it DOES look pretty cool, much better designed than those Windows popups I get while surfing (on my Mac) telling me my Windows system is infected.
“Here’s a start to finish, unedited video that shows how the Mac Guard fake AV program goes from a seemingly innocent Google search result to a full install in just three clicks, with no password required. This demo uses the latest version of OS X 10.6 and the default browser, Safari, with its default settings.”
After watching this I suppose I could see how someone (who is fairly trusting, not all that tech savvy, and easily scared) could be tricked into letting this install on their system, so I’m not AS “what kind of idiot got this?” as I once was.
All I can say is hopefully Intel’s working on some kick ass chips for the future, because it looks like in a year or two, we’ll all be giving up precious cycles to Anti-virus software running in the background, not to mention constant pop ups asking us to update our virus definitions and telling us how many more days we have left to renew before our anti-virus software expires, leaving us unprotected.
I’ve been sent to these sites during many Google searches…. You have to move quick to stop the installing but it can be stopped. You can even (in most cases) just close the Safari and stop it.
I’ve never seen this before and while i’ll concur with it looking prettier than the Windows equivalent, I’m still confused why they didn’t just use Apple’s API elements to make it look even more like a standard Mac App.
Also, I’m confused:
1.) How is this a virus? It required the user’s cooperation in hitting the okay button a few times, so doesn’t that mean it’s a trojan instead?
2.) What exactly does it do after installing itself?
I suspect we will see osx shipped in a default protected mode that will only allow app installs from the app store. Similar to android, users could turn this off in the prefs panel.
Well guys,
To sum it up, it’s not a virus it’s a malware. It doesn’t install it self even if it looks as if you don’t need your password. You still need (and have the possibility) to “asses and act”.
The risk here is that people don’t now what they are doing. not more dangerous than any fishing attempt as far as I’m concerned.
As long as it doesn’t install without any clicks…
TheEdBott? As in Ed Bott, the ZDNet troll with the Windows blog?
That’s the one.
– The Doc
I don’t know dude. The people who actually installed it are more dangerous to themselves than that malware… I mean imagine what they whould have done in a windows environment… And internet itself must be pretty scary. I imagine the same people walk straight into the tell us your facebook password and username and we’ll tell u how many stalkers u have… I say people need to learn proper use of a computer in school and I guess they do already, so one day we won’t need to fear these malware shites.