Apple has released a tool for users still running OS X Leopard. The tool will purge Leopard users machines of the Flashback malware that has been plaguing Mac computers over the last few weeks.
Apple released an update to kill the Flashback malware several weeks ago, in early April. However, until today, Cupertino had yet to issue a patch for users running its older operating system. Apple's Flashback Removal Security Update removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware. If the Flashback malware is found, a dialog will notify the user that the malware was removed. A second update disables versions of Adobe Flash Player that do not include the latest security updates and provides the option to get the current version from Adobe's website. If you're running anything earlier than Mac OS X v10.5.8, you'll also need to update your OS before you can install these two new updates.
Word of the Flashback botnet first emerged on April 4, after Russian antivirus company Dr. Web claimed that more that 600,000 Macs -- most of which were located in the United States and Canada -- were infected with a trojan horse virus called "Flashback," or rather, "BackDoor.Flashback.39." Dr. Web's report said that 56.6-percent of the infected computers were in the United States (303,449 infected hosts), and 19.8-percent resided in Canada (106,379 infected hosts). The United Kingdom followed with 12.8-percent and Australia with 6.1-percent. Other infected Macs were spread across many other countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Brazil.
Follow @JaneMcEntegart on Twitter.
