Reason #1013 not to Pirate software

There are many reasons NOT to pirate software: ethics, legal issues, inevitable corrupted files, lack of tech support, denying developers the money they need to continue the software, etc. But we have a reminder of perhaps the best reason not to download software off of the internet: it is very likely to be infected with a virus or trojan horse. A pirated version of iWork is infecting naive and unethical users with a back door into their Macs.

Security firm Intego identified the trojan in question late yesterday. Dubbed "OSX.Trojan.iServices.A," the trojan is hidden as an extra package—iWorkServices.pkg—in an otherwise fully-functional iWork '09 installer. Once you authenticate with your password to install the software, the trojan installs as a startup item in /System/Library/StartupItems/iWorkServices, an area normally reserved for Apple-only files, giving it read, write, and execute permissions as root. It then connects to a remote server, essentially creating a wide open back door for malicious attackers to do just about anything they want.