Pirated version of iWork '09 contains a nasty trojan

If you are thinking of illegally downloading and installing iWork '09, think twice.

LINK

Who wants to bet that this "Trojan" in actuality does nothing but phone home to Apple in order to see how many more people will start thieving if they remove the DRM on everything as they did with iWork 09?

lol

um a virus on OSX? thought it wasnt very possible, also, wouldnt this depend on WHAT version / person released it?


thats the bad thing about apple apps, you can just copy them around.

i am glad this is happening, now it will open up the neive apple users to show they are just as vulnerable as any other OS, and i am sure this is just the start of this.

but one does wonder, did apple install this and released it themselves... the only way to tell is from diff versions downloaded to see if they ALl contain it or not.

Viruses are possible on any operating system, Apple was relatively innocuous until more recently but it is possible.

People say that linux is more secure, but it is based on unix which was known as "the hackers playground." It is more secure since it is not a major corp that is sued when they try and lock down the OS, (rawsockets for instance) as MS was with Vista, and the tech level of linux users tends to be higher, which makes targetting these systems more difficult and not economically viable to target them.

Also repos tend to be virus free, so it then limits the hacker to 3rd party code, which is usually distributed as source, so you could actually go through it before installing, thus allowing the user to find the virus code before installing. Whereas windows programs are almost always compiled into an exe and the end-user has no idea what is in the exe, and very few linux programs are precompiled binaires.

A good way for a hacker to get into a linux system would be to spoof as one of the common pre-compiled binaries and put it out as a patch (for the flash player for instance) and get people to install it by hand that way, but that would be a real pain.

Who wants to bet that this "Trojan" in actuality does nothing but phone home to Apple in order to see how many more people will start thieving if they remove the DRM on everything as they did with iWork 09?

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There didn't seem to be much DRM on older versions of iWork, either, just a serial number. Or, *cough* so I've heard, anyway. I dunno, just seems like a lot of effort to go through on Apple's part, for not really much gain.

In any case, it's really not that uncommon for virii and trojans to lurk in pirated software of any sort, especially in the 'cracks' or keygens. That's one of the risks you take if you use such things... it's always been that way, even back in the days of floppy disks and sneakernet. Hell, a great number of the infected computers I clean for people got infected because of some crap they downloaded off Limewire or Bittorrent.

Whereas windows programs are almost always compiled into an exe and the end-user has no idea what is in the exe

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i will say, or assume, most Apple users are FAR FAR FAR anywhere near the knowledge any linux user likey is, and to go one step further, many windows users as well.

this virus has spread so fast because of the mentality of alot of Apple users that they are care free and need not worry about such viruses, because Apple has protrayed the image of perfection in their Os! and people suck it up fast! i could see a virus in the Apple world doing more damage then in a windows world, if the number of apple computer matched that of windows, due to user confidence in their choosen OS.

Mr.Guvernment said:

i will say, or assume, most Apple users are FAR FAR FAR anywhere near the knowledge any linux user likey is, and to go one step further, many windows users as well..

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Well, first it's a trojan, not a virus as others have been describing. So people have to install it before it can even do anything. No one to blame but themselves.

Second, I think because most Mac users are so far removed, the fear is not so much that the cutting edge Mac-Pirates (if you can even call them that) get themselves infected, it's that other legitimate users could be at risk. One system on a school, business, or home network is all it takes. People even looking for these apps from those sources are ahead of the general computing curve as it is (Mac or PC). The planet-wide majority of computer users are still secretaries using MS Office.

What I find hysterical is that people can get a free 30 day demo of the application from Apple's own site. And I believe there was a rumor that Apple was not even going to be enforcing serials for this app; so all the hoops people jumped through to get the application from less than secure sources.... was completely unnecessary. Lol.

- Blackstar

hey, i see it often, people upload free programs to sites all the time!!

for an $80 program, goes to show how cheap people can really be, they can afford to buy an Apple product, but not an $80 application...