Flashback Mac Trojan poses as Adobe Flash update, opens backdoor

Mac users are once again being reminded to keep their anti-virus software up-to-date, following the discovery of a Trojan horse that poses as an update to Adobe Flash.

The OSX/Flshplyr-A Trojan horse (called “Flashback” by our friends at Intego, who first publicised it), is disguised as an installer for the popular Adobe Flash program.

Once in place, Trojan horse could allow a remote hacker to gain access to your computer or download further malicious code to your Mac.

Sophos products, including Sophos’s free anti-virus for Mac home users, detects the Flashback malware as OSX/FlshPlyr-A.

It’s easy to imagine how cybercriminals could trick Mac users into infecting their computers…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.