An Apple Malware-Flagging Tool Is ‘Trivially’ Easy to Bypass
The macOS Background Task Manager tool is supposed to spot potentially malicious software on your machine. But a researcher says it has troubling flaws.
Unmasking WindTape - Speaker Deck
The offensive macOS cyber capabilities of the WINDSHIFT APT group provide us with the opportunity to gain insight into the Apple-specific approaches employed by an advanced adversary. In this talk we’ll comprehensively dissect OSX.WindTape, a second-stage tool utilized by the WINDSHIFT APT group when targeting Apple systems. First we’ll discuss the malware’s anti-analysis mechanisms, and then once these have been thwarted, we’ll explore its capabilities. To conclude, we’ll present heuristic methods that can generically both detect and prevent WindTape, as well as other advanced macOS threats.
Unmasking WindTape - Speaker Deck
The offensive macOS cyber capabilities of the WINDSHIFT APT group provide us with the opportunity to gain insight into the Apple-specific approaches employed by an advanced adversary. In this talk we’ll comprehensively dissect OSX.WindTape, a second-stage tool utilized by the WINDSHIFT APT group when targeting Apple systems. First we’ll discuss the malware’s anti-analysis mechanisms, and then once these have been thwarted, we’ll explore its capabilities. To conclude, we’ll present heuristic methods that can generically both detect and prevent WindTape, as well as other advanced macOS threats.
You're M̶u̶t̶e̶d̶ Rooted
With a recent market cap of over $100 billion and the genericization of its name, the popularity of Zoom is undeniable. But what about its security? This imperative question is often quite personal, as who amongst us isn't jumping on weekly (daily?) Zoom calls? In this talk, we’ll explore Zoom’s macOS application to uncover several critical security flaws. Flaws, that provided a local unprivileged attacker a direct and reliable path to root. The first flaw, presents itself subtly in a core cryptographic validation routine, while the second is due to a nuanced trust issue between Zoom’s client and its privileged helper component. After detailing both root cause analysis and full exploitation of these flaws, we’ll end the talk by showing how such issues could be avoided …both by Zoom, but also in other macOS applications.
You're M̶u̶t̶e̶d̶ Rooted
With a recent market cap of over $100 billion and the genericization of its name, the popularity of Zoom is undeniable. But what about its security? This imperative question is often quite personal, as who amongst us isn't jumping on weekly (daily?) Zoom calls? In this talk, we’ll explore Zoom’s macOS application to uncover several critical security flaws. Flaws, that provided a local unprivileged attacker a direct and reliable path to root. The first flaw, presents itself subtly in a core cryptographic validation routine, while the second is due to a nuanced trust issue between Zoom’s client and its privileged helper component. After detailing both root cause analysis and full exploitation of these flaws, we’ll end the talk by showing how such issues could be avoided …both by Zoom, but also in other macOS applications.
You're M̶u̶t̶e̶d̶ Rooted
With a recent market cap of over $100 billion and the genericization of its name, the popularity of Zoom is undeniable. But what about its security? This imperative question is often quite personal, as who amongst us isn't jumping on weekly (daily?) Zoom calls? In this talk, we’ll explore Zoom’s macOS application to uncover several critical security flaws. Flaws, that provided a local unprivileged attacker a direct and reliable path to root. The first flaw, presents itself subtly in a core cryptographic validation routine, while the second is due to a nuanced trust issue between Zoom’s client and its privileged helper component. After detailing both root cause analysis and full exploitation of these flaws, we’ll end the talk by showing how such issues could be avoided …both by Zoom, but also in other macOS applications.