virus on a mac, from an .aiff file?!?!what the...

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virus on a mac, from an .aiff file?!?!what the...

Hi there!
Here is my little story that happen tonight....
I had ripped 2 months ago, some cds from my music collection on my mac, and then i put them on a firewire external hard drive. So, today I pluged that external hard drive, in my sister's pc, to copy my music there. While I was copying the files I saw that the antivirus software detected an infected file(with trojan horse)! It was an .aiff file!
My questions are: how do you think that happen, and will any of my files on my Powerbook be infected?Can I do something for that?
And one more thing, In my Mac Pro, I have connected two firewire disks where I have my files. I used to attach them with my Powerbook before I bought Mac Pro, do you think maybe they have the same problem?I mean with viruses from windows machines or something like that?
Thanks for reading, and for your time!

*some applications(if you see carefully in their package contents), or in the os, have .exe files, is it possible for them to be infected?

Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Dec 30, 2007 11:02 AM

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Answer 1

red_menace

Level 6

17,066 points

Dec 30, 2007 11:16 AM in response to nikolas gr

There are no known viruses in the wild that affect the Mac OS - none. If all you did was copy some stuff from one of your CD's to put on your sister's PC (insert copyright infringement notice here), I would say that her anti-virus just got a false positive. All those do is look for a data pattern that matches a signature from an item in their database, and an audio file isn't exactly executable code. It is possible for any application to contain some kind of malicious code, although I wouldn't use the word "infected" in that case.

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Answer 2

nikolas gr Author

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Dec 30, 2007 2:54 PM in response to nikolas gr

I know that mac do not have viruses and I know that an audio file isn't an executable one!that's why I fricked out!
So you think that's everythig ok and the antivirus just got something wrong?
I am not going to have any problems?Either on my hard discs on the Mac Pro?
Thanks for your time!

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Answer 3

red_menace

Level 6

17,066 points

Dec 30, 2007 4:00 PM in response to nikolas gr

I wouldn't worry about it, especially since you were the one that made the file - if you are really paranoid and want to make sure, just run a couple of other anti-virus applications and see if they come up with the same thing. One popular (as in free) virus checker for OSX is ClamXav.

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Answer 4

Jan 1, 2008 9:05 AM in response to nikolas gr

Are you positive that you had not downloaded any of these songs?
This is a typical scenario folks use to propagate viruses on sites like Limwire.

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Answer 5

nikolas gr Author

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Jan 3, 2008 7:40 AM in response to nikolas gr

Yes of course, I created the files from my original cds!

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Answer 6

Jan 9, 2008 9:33 AM in response to Donald Palmer

Are you positive that you had not downloaded any of these songs?
This is a typical scenario folks use to propagate viruses on sites like Limwire.

You will rarely ever find .aiff audio files on Limewire - and if there IS an infected file it will show up during download by refusing to play in Limewire's Preview, at which point the download should be immediately cancelled without even ATTEMPTING to import it to iTunes.

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