A new report from security software maker Sophos claims that Apple this week silently updated anti-malware protection in its Mac OS X operating system. In fact, the patch was so hush-hush that Apple failed to mention it in either the release notes or security bulletin that came with its Mac OS X 10.6.4 upgrade, which included the mysterious security fix. Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley, in a Friday blog post, asserts that Apple quietly patched the Mac's malware protection to thwart a backdoor Trojan horse that could allow hackers to control an iMac or MacBook remotely. Apple's OS X 10.6.4 upgrade secretly patched XProtect.plist, a file that contains “elementary signatures of a handful of Mac threats - to detect what they call HellRTS,” Cluley writes. Malicious hackers have been disguising HellRTS as iPhoto, the Mac's photo-editing program. A Mac infected by this particular breed of malware would be open to a variety of attacks. For instance, hackers could capture screenshots of user activity, access files and clipboard data, and send spam from the computer.
