Apple fans and users have often bragged that viruses and security threats just aren’t as prevalent in their world as it is for the typical PC user. A recent investigation, however, uncovered a large botnet affecting more than half-a-million Mac machines.
After a Russian security firm reported that a large number of Apple computers were infected and part of a botnet, neighboring antivirus company Kaspersky launched an investigation. They found that a malware program called Flashback had infected over 600,000 Apple computers while half of the infected devices are in the United States.
The Flashback botnet, comprised of the 600,000 infected Apple machines, is being used for click fraud. The compromised machines are used to inflate online advertisement impressions and clicks, but the makers of the malware could easily update their program to do more since they already have access to these devices. Mac users from the United States are the most likely to be infected as there are over 300,000 U.S. computers in this botnet. But there are also 95,000 infected machines in Canada, 47,000 in the UK and 42,000 computers with the Flashback malware in Australia. The botnet and malware also seems to have the most success with one operating system, 98 percent of infected machines are running Mac’s OSX.
For more information: Researchers Confirm Flashback Trojan Infects 600,000 Macs, Used for Click Fraud