How to avoid getting hit by the latest Mac trojans, such as Flashback

There have been lots of talks in the media about the recent Flashback infection affecting Macs. At the last read, there were reportedly over 600,000 OS X machines infected with this malware. While it maybe useful to wait for a fix from Apple (they only said something about this malware the other day, weeks after it has been known to infect machines in the wild),  Apple is not known to be very open about security issues, especially concerning IOS or Mac OS X.

Fortunately, there is one easy way this malware can be stopped, and that is by disabling Java in all your browsers. This should not affect your browsing experience, unless you specifically have to run Java Applets in your browser for some strange reason. I recommend you disable Java in Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Don’t hesitate.

While you’re at it, you should also update Flash Player. To be safe, go to adobe.com to download it.

How to disable Java in Safari, Chrome, Firefox

Mac OS X security has been breached? Not the first time

Despite all the hype about the breaching of Mac OS X security in the media, it pays to remember that this is not the first time it has happened. There have been many Flash Player and Java bugs in the past.

What is new here is that the bugs in Java has been exploited to carry out a silent install of the malware. This exploit has been so successful that it is estimated that up to 500,000 Apple machines have been infected so far.

If you have been unlucky you may have been infected, but there are ways to find and fortunately, remove the malware from your system.