On the end of February was discovered that the first trojan (Leap) to target Apple Computer's Mac OS X, it was published on a new worm that exploits an 8-month-old vulnerability in the operating system, its know by the name of Inqtana, the worm use Bluetooth to propagate, once it infects a computer it searches for other Bluetooth-enabled devices and sends itself to those it finds, this may not be very alarm, but the source code could be easily modified by a future attacker to do damage like Symantec said, Symantec also says it believes the two pests were developed on a parallel time line and that Inqtana was not created in response to Leap, however, two examples of malicious software to target Mac OS X may be the start of a trend!!

Now, more serious is the flaw that alows to install malicious code on computers. I´t is possible by visiting a malicious web site using Apple's Safari Web browser, a backdoor or other malicious software could be installed on the computer without we noticing anything, SANS Internet Storm Center said: "Attackers can run shell scripts on your computer remotely just by visiting a malicious Web site". Another problem is the way that Mac OS X processes archive files, an "hacker" can embed malicious code in a zip file and host that on a web site, and the file and the embedded code would run when a Mac user visit the site using the Safari browser. Alfred Huger form Symantec said: "Essentially, the operating system is executing commands that come in the metadata for ZIP files", "That is exacerbated by the problem that Safari will automatically open the file when you encounter it on the Web", but this problem goes beyond archive files, as SANS said: "The attacker doesn't need to send a ZIP archive; the shell script itself can be disguised to practically anything"!!


An update from Aple Computers has been launched, I know that the update fixs the worm problem and the trojan problem (since that the trojan needs to be download, and it was thru the iChat, so with the update iChat now uses download validation to warn of unknown or unsafe file types during file transfers), but the shell script I don´t know.

If you run a Mac OS X is better you download and install the security update 2006-001 via Software Update preferences, or from Apple Downloads.


Stay well.

uh oh... i hope i dont get that bug..i have a mac g5. must be trouble.