Criminals fail to spread Apple Mac email worm

A month after security researchers detected the first active Mac botnet, a new worm has been detected which tries to pick up email addresses from infected Mac computers.

The previous malware was designed to spread through trojans it had found its way onto computers due to pirated software downloaded through peer to peer networks.

In contrast, new worm Tored' is email-aware and would have spread through Mac computers using email addresses.

Sophos security consultant Graham Cluley said on his blog that comments in the worm's coding revealed that it was also aimed at creating a botnet.

In this case it has failed to spread in the wild, with Cluley saying this was because the worm's author was nothing but an amateur.

"Bugs in the worm's code mean it is unlikely that you will ever encounter it," Cluley said, "even if the author had taken the time to correct the many spelling mistakes in the emails it tries to send."