Macarena virus hits OS X

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Dubbed OS X/Macarena by Symantec, the virus replicates itself but appears not to carry a payload. According to a threat report by the company, the malware only infects files in folders the user is working in at the time. The virus is considered a low-level threat.

According to Peter Ferrie, a researcher at Symantec's Security Response Center, the author of the virus has ignored all previous infection methods applied to subvert OS X and instead has discovered a new method.

"The virus writer has found a rather unexpected region of memory in which to place the code, along with a way to gain immediate control when an infected file is executed," said Ferrie. "There is no payload in this virus-it simply replicates."

Ferrie added that it won't replicate very well, because it is restricted to the current directory. "On Windows systems it is common to have directories like "Windows" and "Windows\system32" full of executable files; but, files aren't stored like that on OSX systems," he said.

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