Flashback Trojan Earned Author $10,000 Per Day

The Flashback trojan that made headlines last month reportedly earned its author about $10,000 per day, according to Symantec.

Ad-clicking Trojans are nothing new and in an analysis of W32.Xpaj.B last August a botnet measuring in the region of 25,000 infections could generate the author up to $450 per day. Considering the Flashback Trojan measures in the hundreds of thousands, this figure could sharply rise to the order of $10000 per day.

A very profitable enterprise indeed, and all the more reason to keep your Mac fully patched and your virus definitions up to date.


The way the author earned money was by loading an ad-clicking component into Chrome, Firefox, and Safari where it intercepted GET and POST requests from the browser.

Flashback specifically targets search queries made on Google and, depending on the search query, may redirect users to another page of the attacker's choosing, where they receive revenue from the click.

You can read more of Symantec's Flashback analysis at the link below...

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