Denis Wong (Neowin.net) has just published an article about this malware removal tool which will be offered by Apple to remove the Mac Defender Trojan-Virus I told you about in “Apple Barrel 2”.

This will not prevent, although it gives advice on how to avoid infection.

screenshots from Neowin.net

Link to articles:

http://www.neowin.net/news/apple-to-offer-mac-os-x-update-to-remove-mac-defender

https://forums.wincustomize.com/408852

UPDATE

An article was just published which tells of a variant of Mac Defender called Mac Guard. This one (per Indigo) does not require the administrator password. Mode of attack is SEO attack. 

"Unlike the previous variants of this fake antivirus, no administrator’s password is required to install this program. Since any user can install software in the Applications folder, a password is not needed," Intego wrote on its blog. "This package installs an application—the downloader—named avRunner, which then launches automatically. At the same time, the installation package deletes itself from the user’s Mac, so no traces of the original installer are left behind." per arstechnica.

 

Once again, the company advises users to turn off "Open 'safe' files after downloading" in their Safari preferences, since this malware (and others like it) are making their way onto users' computers via maliciously crafted URLs.

 

Apple itself acknowledged Mac Defender yesterday in a support document. The company promised to issue a software update that would automatically remove the malware and its variants, but also listed out instructions for how to remove it. We can only assume (or hope, at least) that Apple will include Mac Guard when it gets around to issuing that update, but in the meantime, Intego also offers its own VirusBarrier X6 tool to help remove it." - Intego per arstechnica