Mac Scareware Pushers Begin Targeting Facebook Users

Scareware pushers have started using Facebook to spam out links that lead users to pages distributing fake Mac OS X antivirus software.

The scammers hope to exploit people's interest into the recent news that IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn faces rape charges in New York.

Rogue messages posted from compromised accounts claim to distribute a link to a video showing Mr. Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulting a hotel maid.

"[...] When I visited the page on my Apple Mac I was rapidly redirected to a 'Mac Defender'-style fake anti-virus attack, written specifically with the intention of infecting my computer," warns Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

The company's free antivirus product for Mac detects and blocks the threat as OSX/FakeAVZp-C using heuristic signatures.

Similar spam messages are being used by scammers to lure Facebook users every single day and past experiences tell us that they are quite successful.

Mac users have recently been hit hard by scareware attacks which caught them off-guard due to years of indoctrination that Macs are virus-free.

Security researchers have long argued that the only thing keeping malware authors away from Mac OS is its low market share and warned that at some point this will change.

The fact that Mac scareware authors have now started to leverage Facebook in addition to black hat SEO to distribute their creations, outlines their commitment to this newly discovered market.

Apple has promised to deliver an update to Mac OS X that will remove previous scareware versions, but this reactive approach is insufficient given the speed with which malware evolves today.

Some security experts fear that this is the tipping point in the history of Mac malware. There are serious concerns that when other cybercriminal gangs will see the success of these scareware campaigns, they will begin investing into more complex malware for Apple's platform.