Phishing trojan targets Mac OSX

DNS hijack disguised as codec threatens Apple systems.

A new trojan affecting Apple's Mac OSX operating system - a relative rarity in the malware world - has been seen in the wild. The trojan, thought to belong to the highly prevalent Zlob (aka Puper) family, is being served by numerous fake codec sites, linked to from porn sites. Once installed, the trojan hijacks DNS settings to redirect visits to PayPal and some online banking sites to phishing sites.

The trojan, first reported by Mac security specialist Intego, uses typical social engineering tactics to persuade users to install it. Links to content on porn sites bring up a message saying a certain codec is required to play the media, redirecting users to the trojan download sites, which are apparently locale-aware and provide trojans set up to target local financial institutions.

Once the user has agreed to the install and granted it root access to the system, the trojan doctors DNS pointers to ensure any attempt to visit certain sites will be taken instead to phishing sites modelled on the real versions, which can then gather highly sensitive login information for theft and ID fraud purposes. Other web requests may be redirected to advertising or porn sites.

More details on the attack are at Intego here, at the SANS Internet Storm Center here, at Sunbelt here or at McAfee here.

01 November 2007

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