Trojans and Pirates and iWork, Oh My!
12:00 am, January 23rd, 2009, Lonnie Lazar
A new Trojan Horse is currently hidden in pirated copies of Apple’s iWork ‘09 available via various BitTorrent tracker sites, according to a marketing pitch, uh, report from security software manufacturer Intego.
While the pirated software is complete and functional, the installer contains a “bonus” called iWorkServices.pkg. This software is installed as a startup item where it has read-write-execute permissions for root: in other words, it has all the powers of a system administrator. This malicious software connects to a remote server over the internet, alerts its maker that it has been installed and gives this person the ability to connect to the affected Mac remotely.
Given this alert came from Intego, it is no surprise their software, VirusBarrier X4 and X5, protects you against this Trojan horse as long as your virus definitions are dated January 22, 2009 or later.
Meanwhile, SecureMac, has made a free and handy iWorkServices Trojan Removal Tool that does what its name says it will do.
Of course the very best defense of all against this kind of evilware is to get copies of your software legitimately.
Via MacMerc
Posted by Lonnie Lazar in News, Software | Comment on this article












Worse than the trojan is all the pinheads jumping up and down with glee asking, “I thought Apples were secure, aren’t they?” Okay, pinheads, you’re right. Apples are not secure from being hacked by their owners.
Anyone who uses pirated software deserves what they get. Period.
And I just updated my antivirus signatures.
imajoebob, on January 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 pm
There are many free virtualization packages , even for the Mac. As for defending against Us, we are mostly harmless.
Evilware, on April 5th, 2009 at 7:27 pm