The Fake Anti-virus Application “MAC Defender” scams users for money and your credit card number!
If you’re browsing the web and stumble upon MAC Defender, an antivirus application, DO NOT download it.
Intego, an anti-virus security software maker, announced on its blog that it discovered a trojan horse disguised as a real Mac antivirus program called Mac Defender.
The phony Mac Defender has been showing up in Google searches for users searching for antivirus software.
If you download and install the application, it looks legitimate. It even creates a menu bar icon and pretends to detect viruses on your computer.
Once you’re good and scared, it prompts you to enter your credit card information to pay for the software — at this point, the application steals your credit card information.
The application is not a virus, per se. It doesn’t “infect” any system files or cause any harm to your computer. Instead, it disguises itself as an ordinary virus program and swipes your credit card numbers.
To protect yourself from attacks like these in the future, make sure to turn off “open safe files after downloading” in Safari. To do so, under the Safari menu, go to Preferences… and under the General Tab, uncheck ‘Open “safe” files after downloading’.