It is still unclear to us if this spying is used to display unsolicited advertisements in the browser of infected computers or to steal information. It hooks the system functions responsible for communication and is in a position to alter web pages and spy on users’ internet activity and behaviour. When installed, the library will load with any application on the system. Some of the variants of the dropper we have seen would also load a library. The first stage component of OSX/Flashback is a dropper, its only functionality is to contact a command and control server, download additional components and run them. The bulk of the infections happened recently when a group of websites started distributing the malware through drive-by download, exploiting the CVE-2012-0507 vulnerability in Java. In the last couple of months, we have seen it spread as a fake Adobe Flash player (hence its name) and through exploits. The OSX/Flashback malware can infect computers by multiple means.

We are actively collaborating with the security community, sharing the results of our reverse engineering efforts and sinkhole data. We can confirm the magnitude of the infection spread reported by other companies: we have seen more than 491,793 unique IDs coming from over 749,113 unique IP addresses connecting to our sinkhole. ESET was one of the first companies to implement a sinkhole to monitor the botnet. ESET has been actively investigating the OSX/Flashback botnet. Many have published observations and partial results, generating a lot of buzz. The first mission of MRT: remove Flashback.Ī lot of researchers and security companies have been interested in OSX/Flashback. This update includes a new tool called MRT (Malware Removal Tool) which allows Apple to quickly push malware removal code to their user base. On April 12th, Apple released a third Java update since the Flashback malicious code outbreak. The biggest Mac botnet ever encountered, the OSX/Flashback botnet, is being hit hard.

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