Everyone knows the joke about PCs, Mac and viruses. Macs are the superior computer because all the viruses are made for PCs and Windows right?

Err, no.

Seems that a type of worm has been making its way around the Internet and infecting Mac computers with a little program that enables the hackers to take control of the infected computers through a process involving Reddit of all things. The worm is named ‘Mac.Backdoor.iWorm’ and apparently takes advantage of a flaw in Macs OS X operating system to infect the hard drives of Mac computers.

The first chance it gets it will then access the Internet, head straight to the Minecraft sub-Reddit (yes, really) and starts combing the discussion pages searching for certain comments left by the hackers. These contain addresses for the computer to connect to and once connected, the hackers are in control through remote access.

Findings by Dr. Web, a Russian security company investigating dodgy software estimates that over 17,500 Macs are currently infected right now. It’s thought that the hackers are trying to build a botnet which can be used for DDoSing purposes, as well as other things such as bitcoin farming and sending out spam e-mails. Dr. Web doesn’t believe that the Macs are currently being used right now, just that the hackers are building their network for a later purpose.

It’s probably worth making sure you’re caught up with your virus and malware checks, just in case.