Exaprotect Issues Warning on Apple Trojan
Urges IT Industry to secure their virtual networks not just from external and internal attacks, but also from unwittingly giving remote malicious users the tools to attack other networks
Mountain View, CA—January 27, 2009—Exaprotect, a leader in enterprise security
management innovation, today urged the IT Industry to secure their virtual networks not just
from external and internal attacks, but also from unwittingly giving remote malicious users the
tools to attack other networks.
On January 21, 2009, Intego (http://www.intego.com/news/ism0901.asp) first reported a new
Trojan horse, OSX.Trojan.iServices.A, which is currently circulating in pirated copies of Apple's
iWork 09 found on BitTorrent trackers and other sites containing links to pirated software.
Additionally, on January 26, 2009, a new variant of the Trojan, OSX.Trojan.iServices.B, was
discovered on BitTorrent trackers, this time bundled with copies of Adobe Photoshop CS4 for
Mac. These attacks represent the first widely-spread Trojan horse targeted at Mac platforms.
According to Intego, the malicious software connects to a remote server over the Internet. The
creator of the Trojan horse is alerted that it has been installed on multiple Macs, and has the
ability to connect to them and perform various actions remotely. If the infected computer is
connected to a company's server, that network is in danger of unwittingly giving remote
malicious users the tools to attack other networks.
The risk of infection is serious due to the number of infected users which could reach tens of
thousands. The code, downloaded to the infected computers, is used in a DDoS (distributed
denial of service) attack on certain web sites. Protecting networks from these DDoS attacks is
important, but insufficient, as it addresses only the symptom and not the root cause.
"IT Security executives are focused on protecting against external security attacks, but they have
not put the same protection in place to detect infected desktops or servers within their IT
environments. If we adopt an industry-wide best practice to diligently monitor and protect our
internal networks, we can remediate DDoS at the source, and protect each other against external
security attacks, too," said Christophe Briguet, CTO of Exaprotect.
"In this economy, people are going to be tempted to download pirated software from
questionable sources without even realizing that their computers, and subsequently their
networks " and others' -- have become infected.
Obviously, the best way not to be blindsided by
a security threat is to download software from legitimate software vendors' sites, but these days
you also must have in place the right technology that allows networks to sound an alert and use a
preconfigured response that shuts down the threat in minutes instead of hours or days,"
continued Briguet. "Our lives are becoming more and more virtualized. Just as we learned to
put our seatbelts on before we drive, we need to adopt good habits to avoid future professional
and private identity threats."
To protect against these types of attacks, Exaprotect suggests a threat detection system,
combined with an automated response and remediation process.
Exaprotect's Products Respond
Exaprotect's award-winning enterprise security products help networks combat security threats,
with unique integrated Event Management and Network Security Configuration Management
appliances:
EventManager is a fullfeatured security breach and threat detection appliance that vastly
improves an organization's ability to identify and respond to security threats. It provides realtime
monitoring, alerting, and provides precise recommendations for threat removal.
Solsoft ChangeManager is the only centralized, intelligent multivendor platform that
streamlines the endtoend design and generation of network security rules for Firewalls,
Router, VPN, IPS's. ChangeManager translates highlevel security policies into multivendor,
devicespecific security configurations, allowing enterprises to track and quickly implement
robust security protection strategies, using a simple draganddrop interface.
About Exaprotect
Exaprotect (www.exaprotect.com ), located in Mountain View,
California, is a leading provider of enterprise security management for hundreds of enterprises
and service providers with large-scale, heterogeneous infrastructures. By linking business
policies to specific network configurations, Exaprotect's products increase operational efficiency
of network and security teams, facilitate meeting regulatory and audit compliance and mitigate
security risks.
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