Here is a guide to delete Flashback trojan completely from your Mac.
Probably one of the biggest Mac security incidents of all time is caused by Flashback Trojan. If you didn’t knew yet, this trojan is residing in over 600,000 Macs — iMac, MacBook Pro and Air — and the numbers seem to gradually increase as we speak.
Some Facts About Flashback Trojan
Even if you believe your Mac is secure and free from any kind of malwares or viruses, you may still want to read this article as it can benefit you in many ways, I believe.
- Flashback trojan is said to be a modified version of backdoor malware.
- Flashback can gain access to your Mac’s admin account and probably steal those usernames and passwords from the sites you frequently visited.
- The Trojan can trick you into believing that there’s a Flash Player update available. Do not update.
- Flashback uses an unpatched Java vulnerability to install itself on your Mac. In that case, you may want to stop using Java plugins on your browser.
- According to F-Secure, Flashback takes information from your browser’s history and then sends the information to the servers over the Internet.
- Flashback malware can throw you out of your administrator rights. Some users have also reported that Mac screen froze upon restart.
- Flashback malware doesn’t damage your Mac’s HD (Hard Disk) files, but that shouldn’t stop you from removing it.
Find out if your Mac is infected:
You can input any known command in your Mac Terminal, and if the Terminal spits out irrelevant data, then you know your Mac is infected with Flashback Trojan, unfortunately.
There’s another tool called Anti Flashback Trojan that you can use for checking your Mac for trojans.
Better Ways To Remove FlashBack Trojan From Mac
While you can always use an antivirus program to scan and delete trojans, you don’t have to do that just to remove Flashback trojan. There are easier ways to secure your computer:
- Apple released Java update for Lion and Snow Leopard which removes the Flashback malware completely from your Macs. Get Java on Mac.
- If you don’t want to install Java on your Mac, then try this Apple’s Flashback Removal tool (works only on OS X Lion) [Recommended].
- Download F-Secure’s Flashback tool which will automatically check and delete FlashBack Trojan.
- Kaspersky has also released a free tool that will delete the trojan after each run — download the file from here.
- You can also automatically block Flashback trojan by using OpenDNS on your Mac machine
Mac OS Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5) users, it is recommend to keep Java applets turned off in your Safari browser. Another better option would be to update to Lion, if possible.
