Does everyone remember Flashback, the malware infecting hundreds of thousands of Macs? Well it appears the operators of the trojan are netting over $10,000 per day from its victims.
The news comes via Symantec, the security firm behind Norton.
At its peak, over 600,000 Macs were infected with Flashback but after a media push and Apple's release of a patch for a certain vulnerability, that number has been cut in half, at least.
Despite Apple's proactive stance, there was still a six-week delay before a patch was released, giving the malware ample time to infect more devices. "This window of opportunity helped the Flashback Trojan to infect Macs on a large scale. The Flashback authors took advantage of the gap between Oracle and Apple's patches by exploiting vulnerable websites using WordPress and Joomla to add malicious code snippets," adds Symantec.
Because the malware redirects users to websites created by the operators, who receive money from advertisers, the scheme is bringing in about $10,000 a day in revenue, notes Symantec.
For more information on the malware, check our previous reports here and here.
At its peak, over 600,000 Macs were infected with Flashback but after a media push and Apple's release of a patch for a certain vulnerability, that number has been cut in half, at least.
Despite Apple's proactive stance, there was still a six-week delay before a patch was released, giving the malware ample time to infect more devices. "This window of opportunity helped the Flashback Trojan to infect Macs on a large scale. The Flashback authors took advantage of the gap between Oracle and Apple's patches by exploiting vulnerable websites using WordPress and Joomla to add malicious code snippets," adds Symantec.
Because the malware redirects users to websites created by the operators, who receive money from advertisers, the scheme is bringing in about $10,000 a day in revenue, notes Symantec.
For more information on the malware, check our previous reports here and here.
