Apple: Opener not a virus

After a week of contemplation, Apple has announced that the 'Opener' malware program blighting OS X is - although the security community disagrees. According to ZDNet, Apple has denied that the malicious code dubbed 'Opener' is a worm, a Trojan, or a virus of any kind. Discovered a week ago, the Opener program (originally called Renepo) has the ability to disable the firewall in Mac OS X and steal user information.

"Security experts declared last week that it is almost unheard of for malware to target Apple computers, but said that this could be the start of a spate of attacks to comel."



In a statement to ZDNet, the computer company said, "Apple has just released the following statement and will not comment beyond this: 'Opener is not a virus, Trojan horse, or worm. It does not propagate itself across a network, through email, or over the Web. Opener can only be installed by someone who already has access to your system and provides proper administrator authentication. Apple advises users to only install software from vendors and Web sites that they know and trust."



However, antivirus experts disagree, saying that while the program is not an immediate threat, it is a worm because it attempts to copy itself, and is therefore a virus as well.

by MacNN Staff