MAC "Virus" Scare

[gunug]

  We're having quite a time with the W32/Sobig and Nakia (sp?) at work
with the school district and, even though we had to kill our internet because
the firewall was taking too many hits, I was feeling pretty complacent on
the MAC side of things.  Then I got a call that 2 iMAC's were turning themselves
on and off in one of our schools!  So far I have found no evidence of viral
activities and the whole thing is only bad because one of the machines has
a trashed CD-ROM drive so I'll have to get a new one before I can do too much
software repair!

[Paddy]

I think you mean the Nachi or Welchia worm. It doesn't affect Macs at all. One weird thing it tries to do - remove the Blaster worm!! What's this? Competitive worms? Trying to lull us into thinking that some worms are warm and cuddly? (it has other, more sinister activities, like opening ports)

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcen...lchia.worm.html

The only virus/worm that may be causing your Macs to have fits would be the Blaster worm - though I've never heard of it causing the behavior you're describing. Usually it causes the Macs to have difficulties accessing the internet etc. - and the solution is to disconnect all the PC's on the same network. The PC's are infected - the Macs aren't.

[ljocampo]

Just...     This does sound like a school boy's applescript prank  

[gunug]

The schoolboy prank might be possible.  That schools Tech Facilitator
reported that some boy had told a teacher he had done something
and she'd never be able to tell!  Other possibility is Foolproof playing
up again. . .to those who don't know Foolproof is a program to restrict
access to things on a MAC that you don't want to be messed with by
the user. . .the price is sometimes it goes a little crazy and locks every
thing up good!

Paddy, our PC's are doing pretty badly, Blaster and Welchia along with
something else!  I worked till 10pm on Friday night going around patching
and updating XP workstations and I know some worked yesterday but
I had to help my son on his Eagle project (you have to have two leaders
at any boy scout event. . .especially if it includes power tools)!