Apple recently responded to the Flashback trojan that has reportedly infected at least 600,000 Macs. The Cupertino company said that it is working on an antivirus tool to detect and remove Flashback from infected computers. Another tool called FlashBackChecker can check to see if you’re infected right now.
Russian firm Kaspersky Lab has released a free Mac antivirus tool to not only discover, but also delete Flashback from your Mac.
A web tool has also been created by the guys at Kaspersky Lab to help potential Flashback victims:
Over the last few days our server has registered all the data sent by bots from the infected computers and recorded their UUIDs in a dedicated database. Based on this information we have set up an online resource where all users of Mac OS X can check if their computer has been infected by Flashback.
You can visit flashbackcheck.com to see if you’re infected and find out what to do if the worst is true. The process is a little strenuous compared to simply installing the Flashfake removal tool on your Mac.
Download Kaspersky’s Flashfake remove tool for free by clicking this direct link. The antivirus tool creates a log file (RemoveFlashback.log) on your Mac’s desktop. If Flashback is found on your system, it’s quarantined into an encrypted .zip file and saved to your Home folder. The file is encrypted with the password “infected.” Send it your Trash to get rid of Flashback once and for all.
If you’re running the latest version of Mac OS X and have installed Apple’s last two Java patches, you should be safe from Flashback. Apple hasn’t offered security updates for Mac users running a version of OS X older than Snow Leopard. We’ve shown you how to disable Java in your Mac’s browser, and that step should totally ensure that you can’t be infected by Flashback — no matter what version of OS X you’re running. Keep in mind that the threat is relatively minimal compared to the amount of uninfected Macs out there, but it can never hurt to play it safe.
