While there are already plenty of reasons not to install Flash on your Mac (improved battery life, better performance, etc.), there’s now one more to add to the list: A new Mac trojan is making the rounds disguised as the installer for Flash Player!
If you aren’t careful about where you download the Flash installer from, you might be at risk. The new trojan is called Bash/QHost.WB, and once it infects your Mac, it will edit your hosts file to redirect any visit to one of Google’s sites to an IP address in the Netherlands. The result is that every time you try to visit a Google site (Google.com, Google.com.tw, etc.) you are redirected to a fraudulent site that looks exactly the same.
Here’s what the redirected site looks like in a browser:
Further, the trojan is set up to continually display annoying pop-up ads once it has done its thing, although it’s not actually serving the ads at the moment.
To avoid this trojan, simply make sure that you only download Flash Player by visiting Adobe’s official site. Or, to make live easier, just skip Flash altogether!
People these days. The developers of these viruses need to get arrested and thrown in prison so bubba can GIVE them some viruses.
Skip Flash altogether? Really? There is plenty of relevant content, including web based applications, that rely on Flash and that’s not going to end anytime soon (if ever). And Flash runs just fine on all my Mac systems…no issues whatsoever. While the virus tip is much appreciated, suggesting to “skip Flash” because of it is a stretch.
one word HTML5
This just happened to me! How do I get rid of it?!?!
Sophos make a free anti-virus app, that should fix it.
Sophos make a free anti-virus app, that should fix it.
Wipe your drive and do a clean install
Flash is already holding on by the skin of their teeth and these hackers aren’t doing them any favors. FF!
HTML 5 4 Life!
-Chris
Friends of Mac
Like Joshua Schnell said that Even fake Flash wants to do dirty things to your Mac
I seriously dream of the day when flash is eradicated from websites. It’s time has passed.
Google Chrome with its own flash player.
Think I’ve been infected! Downloaded it from ITV player when it popped up whilst trying to view the X Factor – I know serves me right! MacKeeper isnt picking it up. I dont get the redirection but now cant instal flash player from adobes site OR Mac OS Updates! Help! J
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