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DESCRIPTION
DownloadCheck is an application that checks for Trojan horse applications in your Downloads folder. It was written in response to the MP3Concept Trojan horse release of April 2004. See John Gruber's excellent commentary on this Trojan and the controversy/hype that it generated.

It's likely that you'll never find a MP3 or other document type masquerading as an application. Most transport mechanisms on the Internet will not preserve the resource fork of the file being downloaded. Without the resource fork, the MP3Concept Trojan, and others like it, will not work. DownloadCheck is released as a deterrent for anyone who might consider writing an exploit of this type. We hope that we'll never need to use it.

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REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

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Developer:Craig Hockenberry
Downloads:8,410
  - Version d/l:4,477
Utilities:Virus
License:Free
Date:13 May 2004
Platform:PPC
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    DownloadCheck User Reviews (1 post)Write A Review
    sort: smiles | time
    May 13 2004

    ANONYMOUS  I'll give you an A for good intentions, but "an application disguised as a document" is just brushing the surface of potential trojans, and one that is as you note very difficult to actually get into a user's system. And, alas, the trojan itself would most likely show up in something like an internet-enabled disk image and never show up in the download folder.

    Don't run programs from untrusted sources, don't automatically launch ANY file recieved from untrusted sources, disable all the "helpful" automatic unpacking and launching you can, and open documents by dragging and dropping them into the application icon that's expecting that type.

    Because all these attacks are, at the heart, a con. Social engineering. Be aware, and you won't be socially engineered. Not twice, anyway. :)  
    (Version 1.0)

    praisebury
    0
    [ 2 Replies - Reply ]
    Replies:
    May 14 2004

    ANONYMOUS  Amen.  
    (Version 1.0)

    praisebury
    0
    May 14 2004

    CHIEFTYPIST  A small correction: internet enabled disk image will show up eventually as a folder in the user's download folder (after the items are copied from the disk image.) Since DownloadCheck looks in subfolders, it should pick it up.

    The main problem, as you note, is the stupidity of people. If DownloadCheck flags applications in the folder, maybe it will make people think twice about opening them.

    Nah...  
    (Version 1.0)

    praisebury
    0