Macarena Computer Virus

OSX.Macarena targets Mac OS X Mach-O executables. Mach-O is the format used by Apple Computer Inc.´s operating system for native executables, libraries, and object code. According to Symantec, OSX.Macarena, isn´t designed to infect PowerPC Mach-O binaries, nor Universal binaries, those meant to run on both the PowerPC and Intel Mac platforms.

Although methods of infecting Mach-O binaries have been publicly available for some time, this marks the first known fully functional Mach-O file infecter virus. The source code for this virus is publicly available and as such it is possible that variants may be trivially developed to extend the viruses functionality.

The virus affects both client and server editions of Mac OS X from 10.0.0 through 10.4.8; the latter is the most current version of the Apple operating system.