Mac malware program MacGuard masquerades as antivirus app

Recent statistics suggest that up to 30 million people may have been hit by fake antivirus scams, although I doubt many of the victims were Mac users. Still, that statistic doesn't need to get any higher, hence the warning from Intego. According to the company, the MacGuard software is just a clone of a fake Windows security application called Winiguard. WiniGuard is known for tricking users into buying it by serving up fake spyware alerts, and there's no real reason to think that MacGuard does anything different or useful. In fact, the text and claims on the two sites are almost identical. Fortunately, the MacGuard download link doesn't appear to be working, which should severely limit the number of downloads from here on out.

As for the application's nefarious intent, Intego believes that the site and associated application (if one exists) are being used to harvest and scam credit card numbers. The software will likely prompt users to shell out some money in order to clean their systems, at which point either the cards are charged multiple times, or the card information is sold to unsavory characters (so they can charge it multiple times). MacGuard also has the potential to bring other malware on to your system, so I'd recommend taking a pass on it and sticking with some well-known antivirus software (Norton, McAfee) if you're concerned about the security of your system.

Source:

http://arstechnica.com