From early on in its history, one of the things Apple routinely boasted was their unique computer software, made in such a way that it was almost completely impervious to malware and spyware. Apple had gone so far as to brag about just how safe their programs and computers were from the kind of attacks that plague Microsoft-based computers on a daily basis.
But as the old saying goes, “Pride goeth before a fall.” Earlier this month more than half a million Mac computers were infected with a Trojan Horse virus known as Flashback.
Apple has moved quickly to try and stem the tide of the first attack that has found their product vulnerable in decades, and is working closely with anti-virus providers to cleanse these Macs.
Unfortunately for Apple users, it appears that now that the vulnerability has been exposed, it’s quite difficult to wipe it out. The company issued an update geared toward fixing the flaw in the OS X computers Java vulnerability. Now, there’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that more than half of the computers that were infected have since been cleaned up. The bad news is that internet security company, Symantec, reported on Tuesday there are still more than 140,000 OS X PCs that are infected with Flashback.
“Statistics from our sinkhole are showing declining numbers on a daily basis,” the company wrote on its blog. “However, we had originally believed that we would have seen a greater decline in infections at this point in time, but this has proven not to be the case. Currently, it appears that the number of infected computers has tapered off, but remains around the 140,000 mark.”
Symantec is also offering its own Flashback removal tool for download, separate from the one that Apple offered up to its customers last week. The fact that Apple has managed to do this much cleanup in such a short time is clearly a plus, but Apple’s recent glitch means it’s open season on the computer giant.
Edited by
Braden Becker
