Flashback Tidbits: Flashback Checker, Open DNS Protection, Apple’s Low-Visibility Security Team:

The Flashback malware that is affecting OS X systems has gained quite a bit of publicity from the time it was known in public last week that over 600,000 Macs have been infected by the malware. The Flashback began its life just last year as a Trojan and had changed into a drive-by download taking the advantage of a weak point in Java that Apple had not patched until this last week. Despite Oracle having released patches for other systems back in February.

From last few days, a few additional tidbits of information on Flashback have surfaced which includes the arrival of some new tools that can help the users to manage the threat.

A new Mac app by the name of Flashback Checker had been released which can help users to determine whether their machines have been infected. This has been noted by Ars Technica. Users have been instructed to use Terminal to enter commands searching for the files created by the malware upon infection and Flashback Checker offers a simple packaging of these commands behind a user interface. While the app is such like incredibly simple and does not offer assistance with removing Flashback if it found on a given system, it than does provides a similar interface for those who might be frightened by searching into Terminal on their own.

Open DNS had announced that it had included filtering of Flashback in its regular services. Open DNS offers distinctive type of features that helps in improving the resolution of domain names and the new filtering of Flashback helps to prevent infection while also preventing already infected machines from communicating with the helpful command and control servers being used to deliver instructions to the infected machines.

Forbes had an interview with Boris Sharov of Russian security firm which is named as Dr. Web. It was the first company to bring up the magnitude of the Flashback threat to light. Sharov describes how difficult it was for them to even track down the proper team at Apple with which to share their data. He further describes that Apple had been uncommunicative throughout the process.

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