Hacking Macs is Starting to Pay, Mac Users on Notice

In the past using a Mac was like having an invisible shield which spyware and viruses could not penetrate. Mac users brag about the native security of the system’s BSD-based operating system – Shelling out an extra grand for a computer is a social status statement, and that makes Mac users better than PC users.

Before you are wooed by Apple’s siren song, you might want to save a few bucks for some security software. Thanks to the work of a Russian hacking gang, your Mac is going to need it.

ZDNet is reporting that a group of Russian hackers is disguising a trojan design to attack Macs as a video codec that is required to watch porn on the Internet. Socially superior Mac users are getting duped by the fake codec, bypassing their own security and infecting themselves.

Once infected, the Trojan modifies the Mac’s DNS server to redirect traffic to websites stacked with pay-per click ads. (For all of you ignorant PC users, that means when you try to go to one website, your computer ends up at another one loaded with ads that make the hackers money).

While this is not the end of the Mac’s security world, it is a functional proof of concept that the security God that was once Mac is just a lowly human after all, susceptible to the same social-engineering attacks as Windows Vista users are.

The bottom line is that these hackers are making money through their efforts to infect Mac users (as well as PC users) and because they are profiting, they will probably continue their attacks to keep the cash flowing in.

Maybe Mac should take PC’s disguise after all.

**For the record, I own several PCs and a Mac that I use for video editing **