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Wed, 04 Nov 2009 Symantec warns of retro gaming styled Trojan Horse

Although author actually informs people on his website that the game deletes files

Macworld staff

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Symantec, the largest maker of security software in the world, has warned Mac users about a Trojan Horse "hidden" within an retro styled video game.

According to Symantec, the game looks to be a throw-back to the classic Space Invaders/Galaga style of games from the early 1980s, but is actually a Trojan horse, known as Trojan.Loosemaque.

Once downloaded, for every alien ship the user destroys, the program deletes a file from the home directory Symantec has found.

"While the author of OSX.Loosemaque actually informs people on his website that the game deletes files, there’s nothing stopping someone with more malicious intentions from modifying it and passing it on to unsuspecting users who don’t have security software installed," a Symantec spokeswoman told Macworld in an email.

Symantec claims online games are becoming a popular platform for hiding malicious content and are increasingly becoming a target for virus creators on all OS platforms.

Not surprisingly, Norton from Symantec offers a range of Mac software including Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac and Norton Internet Security For Mac.

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Comments received


ED said on Wed, 04 Nov 2009

So I assume you need to provide your administrator password to install it–perhaps this should raise suspicions?

Funky Diner said on Wed, 04 Nov 2009

Symantec must think we are all fools, what rot!

ian said on Wed, 04 Nov 2009

Shock news: installed program modifies file system when instructed to do so by the user!

bob said on Wed, 04 Nov 2009

Symantec created trojan and wanted to warn us ;) Symantec wants money from us. Nice try Symantec.

@bob said on Wed, 04 Nov 2009

Lol - I still love the head-in-sand approach.

Badger said on Wed, 04 Nov 2009

Nice subtle advertising there...not.

FAKEJames Donevan said on Wed, 04 Nov 2009

Symantec has a habit of making a mountain out a molehill when it comes to Mac viruses. This story has been all over the web today, plenty of free publicity for Symantec. At least Macworld hasnt reported the Symantec story verbatim. The Symantec version makes you believe the company has discovered a Trojan Horse in the wild.

Richie said on Thu, 05 Nov 2009

Best Trojan yet!, hope more cooler ones get created for the Mac soon.

PC Trojans are so dull and it's why I love the mac as every think is done with style.

Perhaps a Trojan that brings up a dog licking your desktop clean, all destop files deleted then craps on your trash can and all your files are in the trash untill the little shit pees on it and all ruined and gone for good!!!

Any how Trojans are not good and if any software like this ask for a admin password then I for one would never install, if no admin rights are required then only damage is user files not any system or vital files, not too much damage.

Mac Dude said on Thu, 05 Nov 2009

Okay...Why are people always suspecting that Symantec is playing tricks. A lot of the time they are right. Macs are targets now more than ever. Simply the high visibility of the OS X platform has encourages hackers to develop such trojans. Nothing out of this world going on here, just hackers doing what they do. So we should protect ourselves (our macs) as much as we can.

Michael said on Thu, 05 Nov 2009

FAKEJames Donevan
It's a trojan, not a virus.

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