We thought this was interesting enough to warrant an extra edition of the newsletter. The link to the full article is below.
Infect a Mac, earn 43 cents
Posted by Ryan Naraine, a journalist and security evangelist.
GENEVA
- In a sign that cyber-criminals are investing more time and resources
into attacks against Apple's Mac users, a new malware affiliate program
has been discovered offering 43c for every infected Mac machine.
During an eye-opening presentation at the VB Conference 2009
conference here, Sophos Labs researcher Dmitry Samosseikko provided a
glimpse into the "Partnerka," a Russian network of spam and malware
affiliates that have turned their attention to the Mac platform - using
social engineering tricks to load fake codecs and scareware programs.
Samosseiko discussed the "codec-partnerka," which is dedicated solely to the sale and promotion of fake Mac software.
He pointed to a site called Mac-codec.com (now offline) which was
offering $0.43 for each malicious install, a price tag that suggests
the Mac platform is becoming more and more lucrative to online crime
gangs.
The site was also offering various promotional materials in the form
of MacOS video players, a sign that the investment is just more than
tricking users into paying for fake security software.
In the past, we have seen the use of porn video lures to trick Mac users into downloadiing and installing DNS changer Trojans.
The DNS changer Trojans typically change the Mac's DNS server (the
server that is used to look up the correspondences between domain names
and IP addresses for web sites and other Internet services). When this
new, malicious, DNS server is active, it hijacks some web requests,
leading users to phishing web sites (for sites such as Ebay, PayPal and
some banks), or simply to web pages displaying ads for other
pornographic web sites.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=4451&tag=nl.e019
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