April 12th, 2012 by ElizaP

The seemingly impossible infection of thousands of Mac computers by Flashback malware, first reported a couple of weeks ago, appears to have been reigned in significantly, according to Symantec. The up to 600,000 computers reported to be infected last week are now down to 270,000, with the most reduction in infection occurring in the last 24 hours. Discovered in 2011, Flashback was able to enter thousands of Mac computers under the guise of an Adobe Flash Player installer. Once installed, the malware set about finding and retrieving usernames and passwords. Apple issued a patch for the three versions of OSX the malware affected, the word about which could have been quickly spread over the last few days, resulting in the significant reduction of infections in a short time. Another security software company, Intego, reported last week that all servers involved in providing Flashback malware appeared to be offline, although the command and control servers are still active, leaving still-infected Macs vulnerable.