Originally appeared on – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. By, Fighting Bad Guys since the Morris Worm, on: is apparently the first wide-spread “ransomware” piece of malware for the Mac and OS X to hit the wild.
Oct 23, 2018 - According to The Information, Apple's original content will be made available for free to Apple. I just cannot see it being a big thing for them.
This is – on the surface – big news. As you delve into the details, it turns into another “oh, wait, you did WHAT?” story. There is a very popular piece of software to allow Mac users to participate in networks, called.
It’s NOT available in the Apple App Store for OS X, you have to acquire it via a public download site, either directly from the developer, or from some third-party link. Let’s stop there: you’re using BitTorrent, which already means that you’re potentially putting yourself at risk via whatever you happen to be downloading (don’t get me wrong, BitTorrent has a hundred completely legitimate uses, it’s just that, well, most of them aren’t). And you’re downloading a piece of software that hasn’t been vetted by Apple – or frankly, anyone else. And you might be doing that from a third party, who might have modified it without your knowledge. Safety is NOT a priority for you. Continuing So, Transmission hasn’t had an update in a really, really long time. The users got restless.
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The developer finally released one, and – ta-da – it’s carrying an unplanned passenger. This is where things get a bit dicey – it’s less than clear if this was pre-packed by the author, if it was added after the fact, or if it only shows up in linked versions which were re-packed by someone else to have it.
I’ll just leave that as it is, since this is all unknown. What IS known is what happens next: if it activates, KeRanger encrypts your entire disk drive, and throws up a “all your bitz is mine” page that offers to de-crypt your drive for the payment of one BitCoin (roughly $400). Thus: ransomware.
And, if you don’t, well, you’re doomed. As in “no, seriously, you’re doomed.” If you’ve been doing regular TimeMachine backups (doubtful, since we’ve already established that you’re NOT “Mr Safety”) then you can revert to before you installed the new 2.90 version of Transmission. If you haven’t yet activated KeRanger (and it’s less than clear what actually triggers this), you can update to 2.92 which supposedly has it removed. Whether that cleans the KeRanger from your system or not is also less than completely certain. I’d wager that if you downloaded, but did not run, the 2.90 release, you’re OK if you just update. However, if you did run 2.90, but have not yet been locked out, that updating is certainly the wise thing to do, however, you might also want to back up your critical data files (not a Time Machine backup, just the files) in case the whole thing does brick later.
Note I say “not a Time Machine backup” because if you do have it, you’ll have it on the re-installed backup, unless you have a REAL time machine that will let you go back to before you installed it, in which case (a) why are you reading this and (b) can I borrow it? For most Mac users, this isn’t a big deal. The estimate is that less than 7,000 people have been affected.
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If you’re one of them, I’m sorry. And don’t do that again. If you want to mess around in BitTorrent-land, that’s awesome. Just build yourself a throw-away box to do it on, or use a or something. Don’t do it on your “main” computer. And consider yourself lucky. A really malicious person would have done much, much worse once they’d gained that level of access to your system.
Originally appeared on – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on,. More questions:.:.:.: RECOMMENDED BY FORBES.