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SophosLabs Warns of Imunizator "Trojan Horse" for the Mac

by , 9:40 AM EDT, March 31st, 2008

Computer security company SophosLabs is warning Mac users that it has discovered a trojan horse application for the Mac dubbed "Imunizator." While SophosLabs is calling the application a trojan horse, Imunizator actually falls more into the "scareware" category because it tries to scare users into purchasing security software.

When run, the application always reports that it has found privacy and security problems on the user's Mac and then prompts the user to purchase Imunizator in order to correct the problems.

Just like any other trojan horse application, Imunizator must be installed before it can be run, and in this case, users must also find the application on the Internet and download it. So far, it appears that the application does nothing more than prompt users for payment, which could also potentially lead to identity theft or at least a stolen credit card number.

Imunizator does not appear to pose a direct threat to Mac OS X security, and it does not take advantage of any flaws or exploits in Mac OS X. Instead, it relies on scare tactics to trick users into giving up personal information.

Avoiding potentially hostile applications takes only a little effort: Stay away from Web sites you don't trust, and don't install software from unknown or untrusted sources.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:geoduck Posts: 1671 Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Subject: Is that the best you got?

Sophos is warning people of something that doesn't self propagate, the package requires the user to find it, download it, and run it. When run it doesn't do anything except pop us and try to scare the user into purchasing a commercial product and thereby open them up to identity theft. As security risks go this isn't very severe, or clever, or even vaguely creative.

If Sophos is warning about this threat, it suggests to me that there isn't much out there to worry about.

Close Name:jimothy Posts: 567 Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Subject: @geoduck

Would Mac users be better served if we weren't warned about this? It's a legitimate threat, large or small, even if the average TMO or even the average Mac users is too sophisticated to be affected by it. It's better to warn about it then pretend it doesn't exist.

View Name:Guest
Subject:
Close Name:geoduck Posts: 1671 Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Subject:

Quote
jimothy wrote:
Would Mac users be better served if we weren't warned about this? It's a legitimate threat, large or small, even if the average TMO or even the average Mac users is too sophisticated to be affected by it. It's better to warn about it then pretend it doesn't exist.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm just thinking that if Spohos is warning about this, a legitimate if very low grade threat, they apperently don't have anything more dangerous to warn us about. This press release rather implies that there is not a MAClissa or Sober-Mac scale virus.

That's good news.

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