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Free app checks for the Flashback trojan infecting 600,000 Macs

Over the past few weeks, security experts have warned Mac users of a new virus making its rounds called the “Flashback” trojan. Flashback is allegedly on over 600,000 Macs, which is roughly 1-percent of the 45 million out there. Flashback exploits a pair of vulnerabilities in older versions of Java. Apple may have patched it, but it is still out there and running on many machines.

How do you know if you are infected? F-Secure has a few Terminal commands to check your machine. For the many who are not adept at keeping their Java updates fresh, terminal commands are going to be even more foreign. Luckily, ArsTechnica points us to a free Flashback checker available on github. The app runs the same checks as you would in Terminal, but automates it for you.

We ran the test ourselves and were clean, but one of our readers found that he had the virus last week. It is definitely worth checking out. If your Mac does have Flashback, F-secure offers a great guide on how to remove it.

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