Check Your Mac for Malware
By: Scott Gilbertson, WIRED
Mac fans recently got a little taste of what it's like to be a Windows user. That's right, a virus targeting Mac OS X is making the rounds. The latest stats from security companies tracking the virus put the number of infected Macs at well over half a million. That's nowhere near the level of some Windows viruses, but it's widespread enough to be a concern for Mac users.
The virus is known as Flashback and it can hijack your Mac without so much as an administrative password. It manages to pull off its attack by exploiting a vulnerability in Java. Oracle, which makes Java, quickly issued a fix for the problem back in February. Unfortunately, because Apple ships its own version of Java (and therefore must provide its own patches), Mac users had to wait on Apple's fix, which didn't arrive until last week.
The slow fix from Apple gave Flashback time to propagate and led to well over half a million infected machines — one of which could be yours.
