More than 600,000 Mac OS X viruses are affected by trojan viruses. (Image: Feras Hares (CC) via Flickr)
It used to be a well-known idea that Mac OS X computers are safe from any virus threats, unlike PCs. However, in Dr. Web’s latest report, an anti-virus company based in Russia, greater than 600,000 Macs are victim to the Flashback Trojan virus. The implications are that these computers have been wide open to criminal hackers.
In an interview with BBC, Timur Tsoriev, who works for Kaspersky Lab, located in Russia as an analyst, said that Apple computers, like Windows PCs, are not safe from cyber viruses.
More than fifty percent of the Mac OS X computers infected by this Trojan were in the US. Around twenty percent are computers found in Canada.
The Flashback Trojan started infecting Apple computers during September. A user unknowingly clicks on what appears to be an update from Adobe Flash. Instantly, that virus will then disable certain security features in that computer and pave way for hackers.
A later version of this Trojan can be found in certain web pages, wherein access causes the codes hidden in Java language are installed, infecting the computer.
Apple has released a security patch this week. Users can download it for protection.
