Watch out for this new malware scam targeting Mac users

Long-suffering Windows users are probably all too aware of the sorts of nasty viruses and bugs you can catch on your computer if you're not careful, but we've got news of a new threat that targets those of you living on the Apple side of the fence.

The trojan has been dubbed Dok by Check Point Technologies, and can currently evade both the virus direction built into Macs and third-party antivirus tools. Once it's taken root, it's able to spy on all the online digital communications happening inside your browser, including those over HTTPS.

It arrives via the old phishing email method as a zipped attachment - users have to download and attempt to open the attachment, then accept a (fake) OS software update to get Dok on their system, at which point it operates invisibly.

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Dok Dok, who's there?

The tried and trusted advice remains the same then: be very suspicious of any unsolicited emails from people you don't know, especially ones carrying mysterious attachments. Check Point says the malware is being aimed mainly at European users right now.

Dok isn't the first piece of malware we've seen targeting Mac users this year: back in February Russian hackers adapted their Xagent backdoor to work on Apple hardware as well as computers running Windows and Linux. Once in, it can spy on iPhone backups and online activity.

If you think you might have already been Dok-ed, iMore has useful instructions for removing the trojan. The moral of the story is to be healthily suspicious of anything arriving in your email inbox, to keep your computers right up to date, and to avoid assuming that you're safe just because you're running a Mac.

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Via Engadget