Is Mac Trojan Horse in the Wild?

There is some debate as to whether the Mac Trojan horse, dubbed "AppleScript.THT," is in the wild.

Security researchers at SecureMac claim they have found multiple variants of the trojan, which exploits a recently publicized vulnerability in the Apple Remote Desktop Agent, on machines running Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5.

Intego also reported on the ARDAgent virus, as well as a second Mac trojan that comes wrapped in a poker game application. Both provide the user's name and password to the hacker, according to ChannelWeb.

However, Washington Post blogger Brian Krebs says "there is absolutely no evidence that this Trojan is spreading in the wild." The Baltimore Sun's David Zeiler agrees that "none of the exploits is a virus that can propagate itself in the wild."

Nevertheless, there is no denying that the exploit code is available. "Andrew," one of the trojan's authors, admits he and his friends created the malware to test the boundaries of OS X security.

Indeed, the appeal of Mac OS X is growing for hackers. As IT BusinessEdge blogger Lora Bentley has pointed out, increased popularity means increased security risk for Mac.

Who knows if Apple will issue a patch for the ADRagent flaw. But in the meantime, Krebs provides some fixes.