Sophos publishes list of Mac attacks


20 Nov 2010

IT security and control firm Sophos has released a list of common viruses that can be found on Apple Macs.

The data was collected from less than 50,000 malware reports from users of Sophos Mac anti-virus software, which revealed that many of the viruses are Windows specific and could be transferred to Macs from other platforms.

Not direct attacks

Some of these threats do not attack Macs directly but manoeuvre themselves in via other platforms.

Other threats such as Mac OS X-specific Trojans, the company says, are typically disguised by hackers on BitTorrent sites, or planted on websites disguised as downloads or plug-ins to view videos and platform-independent Java attacks.  

The most common malware detected on the Sophos report was ‘Mal/ASFDldr-A’ and there were altogether six Trojan threats listed in its report.

Here is a list of the top threats as recorded by Sophos:

Mal/ASFDldr-A –             4.62pc

Troj/Javadl-V               3.67pc

Mal/JavaKC-G                2.96pc

Mal/JavaKC-E                2.36pc

Troj/KeygenD-P              1.59pc

Mal/JavaHU-A                1.36pc

Mal/JavaK-CI                1.35pc

Troj/JavaDL-X               1.21pc

Troj/Bytever-G              1.11pc

Mal/JavaHibis-A             1.06pc

Mal/JavaK-CK                1.03pc

OSX/Jahlav-C                0.98pc

Troj/JavaDL-J               0.96pc

OSX/DNSCha-E            0.95pc

Mal/Javasnd-C               0.91pc

Macl/Conficker-A            0.80pc

Troj/JavaDL-W               0.76pc