Mac malware goes from game to serious

12.05.2011
Apple -- and many Mac users -- argue that that makes it less likely to be infected with malware. Many security researchers counter that the Mac's seeming immunity stems not from its security, but from its lack of market share.

The debate may finally be settled.

The emergence of a serious seems to mimic a 2008 prediction by a security researcher. The prediction comes from a paper written in IEEE Security & Privacy ( ), which used game theory to predict that Macs would become a focus for attackers as soon as Apple hit 16 percent market share.

Last week, security researchers pointed to a construction kit for creating Trojans for the Mac OS X as a major issue for Mac users. Currently, three countries -- Switzerland, Luxembourg and the United States -- have Mac market share .

"The kit is being sold under the name Weyland-Yutani Bot and it is the first of its kind to hit the Mac OS platform," Peter Kruse, partner and security specialist at security firm CSIS, . "CSIS finds this crimekit to be quite disturbing news since Mac OS previously to some degree has been spared from the increasing amount of malware which has haunted Windows-based systems for years."

Weyland-Yutani Bot, named for the corporation in the 1979 movie Alien, is currently being sold by its developers. While it is not the first attack on the Mac OS X, crimeware has enabled criminals in the past to scale up attacks quickly.