User blog:Dekagamer7X9/The Big Virus Scare

Oh boy... So, Macs are known for having barely any viruses. However, recently, a certain one surfaced through a BitTorrent client known as Transmission. Thankfully, Apple was able to shut it down before it spread to too many computers.

Article: http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/07/apple-has-shut-down-the-first-fully-functional-mac-os-x-ransomware/

Unfortunately, my family was one of those affected. The virus, KeRanger Ransomeware, attempts to encrypt your personal files, keeping you from being able to access them. It then leaves a "README" document in various places on your computer, which directs you to a website that demands payment from you in order to reverse the effects. Luckily, our anti-virus caught it, and thus I was able to shut it down before it did too much damage. For some reason, it doesn't encrypt applications, and so a large majority of content on our computer was spared. Important things, such as music, game data, and personal photos, were saved to our external hard drive, which wasn't affected. In the end, all we lost were some pictures and text documents. Nothing too major, but it was still a big scare.

And if these people were able to create the first threatening mac virus, just think about it. It could pave the way for new mac-exclusive viruses. Hopefully Apple will curb-stomp future threats, like they did with this one.