After the Flashback / Flashfake Mac trojan was exposed by Russian site Dr. Web, Apple has finally responded by publishing a support page about the issue and promising a fix. If you haven't heard by now, the malware exploits a flaw in the Java Virtual Machine, which Oracle pushed a fix for back in February, but Apple didn't patch until a botnet consisting of as many as 650,000 Macs was identified on March 4th. Antivirus maker Kaspersky has confirmed the earlier findings, and released a free tool affected users can run to remove the trojan from their computers. Other than the update already delivered for computers running OS 10.6 and 10.7 Apple recommends users on 10.5 and earlier disable Java in their browser preferences. What isn't mentioned however, is when its fix is incoming or any timetable on its efforts with international ISPs to cut off the IP addresses used by the network. This is not the first time Macs have fallen prey to malware and as their market share grows will likely not be the last, so don't think just opting for OS X is automatically keeping you a step ahead security-wise. Check the links below for more information about what the malware does, and how to get rid of it.

Apple publishes support page for Flashback malware, is working on a fix originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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