Cyber security company Intego has discovered new malware that disguises itself as a Flash Player. What is most concerning is that it is being distributed via webpages that appear in Google's search results.
Intego has discovered a new Trojan that is specifically designed to circumvent macOS Catalina's security measures. A Trojan is a type of malware that pretends to be legitimate software, in this case a Flash Player, and is then installed by the user on their own computer.
MacOS Catalina has a number of precautions to prevent the installation of malware that include verifying that the apps developers are registered with Apple and if they aren’t warning users and making it more difficult to install the program. It’s possible to install such a program but it is necessary to make changes in the system settings to do so.
This particular Trojan is able to bypass these security restrictions because it launches an installation guide that guides the user through the steps necessary to install it.
This newly discovered Trojan is particularly dangerous because it can be found via Google's search results pages, reports AppleInsider.
If, for example, a web users searches for a title of a YouTube video on Google the results that appear can lead the user to a message suggesting that they have an outdated Flash Player and indicating that they can download the current version via a download button. The Trojan is hidden in this file.
