Apple Macs are becoming a 'soft target' of hackers for their popularity |
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London, May 24 ANI: Online security officials have warned that Apple Macs are becoming a 'soft target' for hackers because of their popularity among users. Apple was once marketed as more secure than those running on Windows software, but Graham Cluley, a spokesman for online security firm Sophos, said there has been a marked increase in malware aimed at Macs in the past few weeks. "Because Mac users don't use anti-virus protection then they are seen as a soft target. Macs have become a victim of their own success," the Daily Mail quoted Cluley, as saying. According to reports, a new 'scareware' program-Mac Defender, which is distribuited under various names like Mac Protector, infiltrates a Mac computer via a fake Google Images result or an Internet pop-up that convinces victims their machine is infected by a virus and that they must download anti-virus software to delete it. In certain cases, the pop-up directly downloads the virus to the user's computer without waiting for the user to refuse its request. Joel Esler, of Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team, said that Mac OSX operating system fails to identify such 'scams' at times. "There aren't any tell-tale signs that it's actually malware. No words are misspelled, the grammar is acceptable to the casual reader. In the security realm we see this all the time on Windows systems. But I'm guessing the Mac user community doesn't have much experience with this type of scam," he added. ANI Posted by aniin on Thursday May 26 reply Comments |
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