Apple’s Mac OS X operating system has generally fared well in steering clear of security vulnerabilities.
But researchers as security vendor Sophos have identified what they believe to be a chink in the armor, namely a remote access Trojan (RAT) that could be exploited to send commands to an infected machine, or produce a fake administrators prompt in an effort to trick users into revealing their admin credentials.
Sophos researcher Chester Wisniewski noted that the vulnerability is commonly distributed by downloads of pirated software and torrent sites, but there are other entry points, as well.
“It could also be dropped by a vulnerability in your browser, plug-ins and other applications,” Wisniewski said. “Patching is an important part of protection on all platforms.”
eSecurity Planet takes a look at Sophos’ discovery of the latest security vulnerability in Mac OS X.