Just because you have a mac does not mean that you are "safe" from the nasties in the world. You can now join the majority of the planet and be scared right along with us!
ComputerWorld reports that:
"January 15, 2008 (Computerworld) — Mac users can now claim their first example of "scareware," a widespread scam in the Windows world where bogus security software tries to spook consumers into anteing up, an antivirus vendor reported today.
MacSweeper, which sells for $39.99 through a Web site by the same name, is a rogue application that will "always find something to fix/clean, but the only way to do so is to buy the program," claimed Patrik Runald, a senior security specialist at Helsinki, Finland-based F-Secure Corp., in a posting to the company’s blog.
"Even more telling that it’s a scam is the fact that when you visit the MacSweeper site with a PC and click on ‘Scan,’ it will tell you that you have security vulnerabilities in folders that only exist on [the] Mac, like ’system_root/home," said Runald. "Fake? Oh yeah."
Additional clues about the application’s illegitimacy, added Runald, are easy to spot. The MacSweeper Web site, for example, includes text under an "About us" heading that is a brazen copy-and-paste from the Symantec Corp. site.
MacSweeper.com, which was registered in November 2007, uses a domain name server based in Ukraine, according to a WHOIS search. The individuals who registered the domain, however, masked their identities using an anonymity service.
MacSweeper, said Runald, is a cousin to the Windows scareware dubbed Cleanator, just one of numerous rogue security programs on that platform that try to dupe users out of money and/or credit card account information by posing as useful software. Among the most notorious scareware applications on Windows: SpySheriff, WinFixer and IEDefender.
"What does the first Mac rogue application really mean?" asked Runald. "It means that … Mac users will increasingly come under attack from bad guys. It doesn’t mean that Mac is becoming less secure in and of itself. But it does mean that Mac users will have to watch out for social engineering tricks just like Windows users have had to do for years."
On a follow-up to the announcement on F-Secure’s blog, a "developer" from MacSweeper posted the following comment:
I would like to explain all the situation, about MacSweeper.
We are really trying to make a good software, and you wont find any viruses/spyware/trojans/malware in MacSweeper (test it your self, if you don’t believe me, you can use any type of firewalls, dissemblers, or other tools) .
The problem is that we are using selling partners that forces us to use this marketing type. We would like to leave them, we don’t want to completely destroy Good Name of MacSweeper application.
Personally I adore Mac Platform, and it hearts to here that the program you wrote is said to be some kind of "Rogue application" , i wouldn’t like to destroy good manners of software written for it :((
I would like to say sorry for all inconveniences that we could bring to you, but believe MacSweeper is meant to be a useful application. You can ask Questions, and i will try to answer them!
Thank You!
support@macsweeper.com"
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