p2p news / p2pnet: Now the first the first worm has been found gnawing its way into Apple’s Mac OS X, 79% of 600 users believe Mac will be targeted more often, says UK security firm Sophos.

The OSX/Leap-A worm, which can spread on the iChat instant messaging system, was detected yesterday, but more than half of those polled didn’t believe the problem would be as great as it is for Windows.

“What’s perhaps surprising is that there are a hardcore element of 21% who believe that threat attempts against Mac users will not grow,” says Sophos.

Leap-A seems to have introduced itself to the world via MacRumors.

“On the evening of the 13th, an unknown user posted an external link to a file on MacRumors Forums claiming to be the latest Leopard Mac OS X 10.5 screenshots,” says the site. “The file was named ‘latestpics.tgz’.

“The resultant file decompresses into what appears to be a standard JPEG icon in Mac OS X but is actually a compiled Unix executable in disguise.”

Also See:
Sophos – 79% believe Mac will be targeted more often in wake of Leap-A Mac OS X worm, February 17, 2006
MacRumors – The First Mac OS X Virus? (A New OS X Trojan), February 16, 2006

This entry was posted on Friday, February 17th, 2006 at 7:22 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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