Hacked Macs: 43 Cents

Mac fanboys like to parrot Apple’s claims that Macs are more secure than PCs. This should come as a nice kick in the balls to those smug bastards. Apparently, those three-thousand-dollar desktop decorations are worth forty-three cents once compromised.

In a presentation Thursday at the Virus Bulletin 2009 security conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Sophos researcher Dmitry Samosseiko discussed his investigation of the Russian “Partnerka,” a tangled collection of Web affiliates who rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from spam and malware, most of the former related to phony drug sites, and much of the latter targeting Windows users with fake security software, or “scareware.”

But Samosseiko also said he had uncovered affiliates, which he dubbed “codec-partnerka,” that aim for Macs. “Mac users are not immune to the scareware threat,” said Samosseiko in the research paper he released at the conference to accompany his presentation. “In fact, there are ‘codec-partnerka’ dedicated to the sale and promotion of fake Mac software.”

One example, which has since gone offline, was Mac-codec.com, said Samosseiko. “Just a few months ago it was offering [43 cents] for each install and offered various promo materials in the form of Mac OS ‘video players,'” he said.

“Video players”. Considering that Apple markets Macs as complete multimedia solutions out of the box, you’d have to be pretty dumb to fall for that one. Wonder what that says about Mac users.

Originally posted on September 28, 2009 @ 8:45 am