[X-Newbies] Possible Trojan

[Kirk McElhearn]

On Dec 17, 2005, at 3:44 PM, Chris Walker wrote:

> This has me a bit worried.  Whether it was spyware or something that
> simply flooded Google with spurious packets I don't know.  The only
> thing I can put it down to was a Beeblefish widget which might have  
> been
> a trojan.  It came from MacUpdate which is usually reliable.  I  
> suspect
> the thing is still installed somewhere and only Snitch is stopping it
> operating, but other than using spotlight - which shows nothing - I
> don't know where to look.

How can MacUpdate be reliable? It is simply a repository that links  
to developer's pages and downloads...

Widgets worry me as well, since it's hard to know what they are  
doing. It is entirely possible that a widget is sending data requests  
to a specific server, and I know of many widgets that are merely  
vehicles for affiliate click-throughs (widgets that check stuff on  
Amazon, for example). Caveat downloader.


Kirk
              Author of: How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Tiger
                      http://www.mcelhearn.com/htde.html
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