First botnet based on Apple computers

Posted: April 21st, 2009 | Tags: Apple, Botnet |

Security experts from Symantec company inform of appearance of the first botnet, which structure includes computers under control of Apple Mac OS X operating system.

The analysis has shown that creation of new zombie network, named iBotnet, has started in January. The structure of the botnet includes computers infected with malicious program OSX.iServices. This trojan was distributed as an utility for removal of copy protection of pirated versions of Photoshop CS4 and iWork ‘ 09.

At a rough guess, the iBotnet network can include up to several thousand computers. Some time ago the botnet has been already used by malefactors for the purpose of carrying out of the distributed DoS-attack. Probably in the long term cybercriminals will try to use iBotnet for the organisation of a mass spam distribution. Experts mark that the majority of anti-virus programs for Mac OS X platform already contain detection and removal procedures for the iServices trojan. Users are strongly recommended not to neglect elementary security measures.