ZDnet aptly calls it a new game of "whack-a-mole." Ars Technica calls it a game of "cat and mouse." We'll just call it a Winston Churchill moment for for Mac security, or "the beginning of the end."
Mac OS X users, beware. Eight hours after Apple released a long-atwaited security patch to detect a month-old "MAC Defender" Trojan horse, authors of the malware released a new variant on Wednesday called "Mdinstall.pkg" or MAC Guard, which bypasses the signatures Apple added to the patch.
But overnight Wednesday, an Italian blog, Spider-Mac, discovered that Apple had quietly added a couple variations of MAC Defender, including MAC Guard, to its OS X fix. The signatures now include automatic detection of "OSX.MacDefender.A," "OSX.MacDefender.B," and "OSX.MacDefender.C."
First detected by Intego in early May, MacDefender cleverly poses as an anti-malware program that actually infects Macs through poisoned image searches on sites like Google. Once it enters the computer, it takes over the desktop and is difficult to remove as it attaches itself to the launch menu and has no dock icon. It took Apple an entire month to update its security patch circa 2009.
If a factor in your Apple purchasing decision is the belief that its products are less prone to viruses and malware than PCs, maybe it's time to think again. The MacDefender-class Trojan horse is similar to rogue anti-virus scareware that has plagued PC users for years.
For more, see "Antivirus for Mac: It's Time.
Additional reporting by Damon Poeter.