The Flashback infection map details the Mac botnet.

Remember the good old days, when Macs were virus-free and only Windows users had to worry about security and protection online?  Well, those days are over, cats and kittens.  According to the Russian antivirus company Dr. Web, over 600,000 Macs are infected by a malware known as Flashback.  Flashback, originally targeted to Windows, has become the malware of choice to attack Macs as it hops from infected website to the Mac via Javascript.  As it turns out, nothing is safe from malware.  Not your mobile phone, not the military’s drone aircraft, and definitely not your OSX-powered PC.

Since Apple maintains its own Java (the program itself is administered by Oracle), and since Apple is horrible about keeping its files up to date, Flashback exploits a security hole patched back in February that wasn’t patched in Apple’s version of Java to take control of a user’s computer and turn it loose in a botnet while sniffing out user names and passwords as you travel the web.  Half of the infected computers are in the United States, which isn’t surprising given Mac’s install base is basically in the US only.  That said, that’s an awful lot of vulnerable computers being taken over.

If you think you may be infected by Flashback, F-Secure has detection and removal directions.

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