How Macintosh virus could be stealing $10,000 daily from Google

[marmar]

from the Toronto Star:



The hackers behind a virus plaguing Macintosh computers could be generating up to $10,000 per day off of Google advertisement clicks, according to security software company Symantec.

In a statement on their official blog, Symantec said the makers of the Flashback Trojan — a virus that first appeared in March and infected some 600,000 Macs by early April — have profited by targeting search queries made on Google through Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers.

It’s a Mac-attacking virus that Roel Schouwenberg, a senior researcher at antivirus software company Kaspersky Lab, told the New York Times in April was the largest scale and most sophisticated attack on Mac OS X to date.

Flashback may reroute users to another page where they, instead of Google, receive revenue from the click — effectively stealing ad revenue from Google. A Symantec analysis of a hijacked web search for “toys” found that the Flashback hackers were paid about 8 cents for the redirected ad click. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1171626--how-macintosh-virus-could-be-stealing-10-000-daily-from-google?bn=1

[onehandle]

1. None of the many, many Mac users I know have the virus, but now I want it. nt