Mac Defender Woes – Apple Now Taking action

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Mac Defender Woes – Apple Now Taking action
The last couple of weeks an increasing number of Mac users found their computers to become infected with a new scareware program known as MacDefender. The software program will inform owners that it has found a number of viruses on the machine, but users need to buy the software before the so-called viruses can be removed.

According to a number of Mac users, the software appears to download automatically onto unprotected machines, exploiting the default ‘open files after download’ setting found in the majority of web browsers. Yes, in order to install the program a user needs to provide an administrator name and password and this is exactly what an increasing number of users are doing.

This ultimately led to Apple staff being instructed by the company to inform users that AppleCare does not provide support for removal of the malware. Staff members were also instructed not to confirm nor deny whether the customer’s Mac is infected or not – Who could blame the company?

The new malware scam came as a shock to a large number of Mac users who believed themselves to be untouchable in the virus or malware arena. They were all left stranded with infected machines.

Apple had, subsequently, been punished by bad press due to its ‘hands-off’ approach to the problem. The company was forced into a position where they had no other option to take action.

The company today announced that it will be releasing an update to the Mac OS X, which will detect and remove the Mac Defender malware software. The company confirmed that the update would go live in coming days and that it will target all variants of the program.

Apple has also gone as far as posting a support article on its website for users to avoid and remove the program from affected machines. The article can be viewed here.

This far it is unknown who the people are behind the malware scam, but an investigation is ongoing.

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Editor in Chief with passion for gadgets and web technology. He is writing gadget news, covering mobile gear, apps and concept devices.

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