A few months ago security company F-Secure uncovered a Mac Trojan horse that posed as an installer application for Adobe Flash, taking advantage of the popularity of the plug-in to trick users into installing it. After installation, the Trojan would alter the system's hosts file to redirect Google sites to fraudulent servers. Now Intego has discovered a new Trojan for OS X that does pretty much the same thing: masquerades as a Flash Player installer to trick people into installing the program.

Unlike the previous Flash Trojan (called Bash/QHost.WB), which changed one file on the system, this new Trojan is a bit more complex and first deactivates network security features, then installs a dyld library that will run and inject code into applications that the user is running. The Trojan will also try to send personal information and machine-specific information to remote servers.

The Flashback Trojan's installer looks like a legitimate program.

Intego calls the Trojan OSX/flashback.A, and is not... [Read more]

The majority of Pandora's business comes through mobile devices; 70 percent, to be exact.

Yet like many Web services that began with only the desktop on the mind, the early Pandora team had no inkling that mobile would become the runaway success it is.

"Like most rock bands, Pandora was sort of like a 10-year success in the making," Tom Conrad, CTO and EVP of Pandora, told the audience at GigaOm's Mobilize conference in San Francisco.

Despite holding on to the ambition to become "the future of radio," in Conrad's words, Pandora's initial goals were quite modest: tuning 1 million listeners in to the fruits of the Music Genome Project, which forms Pandora's algorithmic backbone for discovering new artists in streaming playlists of Pandora's amalgamation.

Pandora surprised itself, as it turns out. On the eve of the iPhone App Store launch, Pandora had grown to 13 million listeners. When the App Store opened, the number or registered users skyrocketed overnight, and today the streaming service enjoys more than 100 million registered users, all acquired without spending a single cent on marketing, Conrad says.

All this speaks to the power of viral marketing, and to the iPhone's game-changing ability to launch developers into the spotlight.

Fun fact: Before latching on to Greek mythology, Pandora used to be known as Savage Beast. Rawr!

(Credit: Four Hundred Games)

Meet Doodle Assault for Android (download), a quirky side-scroller that strays from the typical spaceship-versus-aliens shoot-'em-up style by incorporating some childish humor into its plot. In this game, you are a lone paper airplane, flying across an infinitely long landscape of doodled-on binder paper. Your enemies include snout-shooting flying warthogs, winged pencils, and other fantastic classroom doodles come-to-life.

As you destroy enemies with your tiny origami shooting stars, you can pick up coins that can be used to upgrade your plane's speed, weapon, health, firing rate, and defense. And the best part is that you get to keep all of your coins and upgrades even after you lose a life or get a game over, which is a heck of a lot more fun than starting from scratch every time.

Doodle Assault is a free download, available now in the Android Market.

Crimson: Steam Pirates offers engaging steampunk-inspired naval warfare.

I don't know if a game about pirates and warships can "fly" under the radar, but that's what happened when Crimson: Steam Pirates made its debut a few weeks back. And that's a shame, because it's one of the best iPad games I've played--and definitely worthy of a spot on Scott Stein's best free iPad games list. That's right: Steam Pirates is a freebie.

Well, partially free, and partially freemium. The game starts you off with Chapter 1 of the "Tales of Captain Blood" saga; Chapter 2 will run you $1.99, as will Chapter 3 (which is not yet available but coming soon). Each chapter contains eight levels, or "voyages" to use Steam Pirates parlance.

Each voyage consists of a turn-based mission. For example, you might be tasked with boarding and capturing a ship, then escaping with it. Or attacking a land-based fortress and making off with a certain kind of loot. Along the way you'll attack (and sometimes defend) other ships. Submarines and airships, too.

Most turns are about navigation; you choose a ... [Read more]