The fake MacDefender malware that has been plaguing owners of Apple computers for about a month has been traced back to Russian online payment processor ChronoPay, a computer security researcher claimed Friday.
"Some of the recent scams that used bogus security alerts in a bid to frighten Mac users into purchasing worthless security software appear to have been the brainchild of ChronoPay, Russia's largest online payment processor and something of a pioneer in the rogue anti-virus business," writes security researcher Brian Krebs on his KrebsonSecurity blog.
The fake MacDefender phishing attack and similar scareware called MacProtector and MacSecurity often attacks through poisoned Google Image search results and is very difficult for Mac users to remove because it attaches itself to a computer's launch menu and has no dock icon.
Krebs said he traced new strains of the scareware back to ChronoPay by investigating two domains the rogue software directs Mac users to go for a paid software security solution. He found that both mac-defence.com and macbookprotection.com are associated with the email address fc@mail-eye.com
"Some of the recent scams that used bogus security alerts in a bid to frighten Mac users into purchasing worthless security software appear to have been the brainchild of ChronoPay, Russia's largest online payment processor and something of a pioneer in the rogue anti-virus business," writes security researcher Brian Krebs on his KrebsonSecurity blog.
The fake MacDefender phishing attack and similar scareware called MacProtector and MacSecurity often attacks through poisoned Google Image search results and is very difficult for Mac users to remove because it attaches itself to a computer's launch menu and has no dock icon.
Krebs said he traced new strains of the scareware back to ChronoPay by investigating two domains the rogue software directs Mac users to go for a paid software security solution. He found that both mac-defence.com and macbookprotection.com are associated with the email address fc@mail-eye.com