Malicious Go Binary Delivered via Steganography in PyPI
On May 10, 2024, Phylum’s automated risk detection platform alerted us to a suspicious publication on PyPI. The package was called requests-darwin-lite and appeared to be a fork of the ever-popular requests package with a few key differences, most notably the inclusion of a malicious Go binary packed into
Safari Flaw Can Expose iPhone Users in the EU to Tracking
Apple's implementation of installing marketplace apps from Safari is heavily flawed and can allow a malicious marketplace to track users across websites
Bringing process injection into view(s): exploiting all macOS apps using nib files · Sector 7
In a previous blog post we described a process injection vulnerability affecting all AppKit-based macOS applications. This research was presented at Black Hat USA 2022, DEF CON 30 and Objective by the Sea v5. This vulnerability was actually the second universal process injection vulnerability we reported to Apple, but it was fixed earlier than the first. Because it shared some parts of the exploit chain with the first one, there were a few steps we had to skip in the earlier post and the presentations. Now that the first vulnerability has been fixed in macOS 13.0 (Ventura) and improved in macOS 14.0 (Sonoma), we can detail the first one and thereby fill in the blanks of the previous post. This vulnerability was independently found by Adam Chester and written up here under the name “DirtyNIB”. While the exploit chain demonstrated by Adam shares a lot of similarity to ours, our attacks trigger automatically and do not require a user to click a button, making them a lot more stealthy. Therefore we decided to publish our own version of this write-up as well.
Infostealers continue to pose threat to macOS users
Jamf Threat Labs dissects ongoing infostealer attacks targeting macOS users. Each with different means of compromising victim’s Macs but with similar aims: to steal sensitive user data.
Jamf says 9% of smartphone have fallen for phishing attacks
In a report going over the state of malware in 2024, device management firm Jamf says that 9% of mobile users were caught by phishing, while 20% of companies were at risk because of bad smartphone configurations.
New RustDoor macOS malware impersonates Visual Studio update
A new Rust-based macOS malware spreading as a Visual Studio update to provide backdoor access to compromised systems uses infrastructure linked to the infamous ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang.
Jamf Threat Labs Discovers Pirated macOS Apps Similar to ZuRu Malware
Jamf Threat Labs discovers new pirated macOS applications that establish communication with attacker infrastructure, allowing the victim's computer to be controlled by the attacker.
Analyzing a pirated application, that contains a (malicious) surprise A few days ago, malwrhunterteam tweeted about pirated macOS application that appeared to contain malware And even though as noted in the tweet the sample appeared to be from 2023, it was new to me so I decided to take some time to dig in deeper. Plus, I’m always interested in seeing if Objective-See’s free open-source tools can provide protection against recent macOS threats. In this blog post we’ll start with the disk image, then hone in on a malicious dynamic library, which turns out just to be the start!
MacOS info-stealers quickly evolve to evade XProtect detection
Multiple information stealers for the macOS platform have demonstrated the capability to evade detection even when security companies follow and report about new variants frequently.
In both his twitter (err, X) thread and in a subsequent posting he provided a comprehensive background and triage of the malware dubbed SpectralBlur. In terms of its capabilities he noted: SpectralBlur is a moderately capable backdoor, that can upload/download files, run a shell, update its configuration, delete files, hibernate or sleep, based on commands issued from the C2. -Greg He also pointed out similarities to/overlaps with the DPRK malware known as KandyKorn (that we covered in our “Mac Malware of 2024” report), while also pointing out there was differences, leading him to conclude: We can see some similarities ... to the KandyKorn. But these feel like families developed by different folks with the same sort of requirements. -Greg
This write-up presents an exploit for a vulnerability in the XNU kernel: Assigned CVE-2023-32434. Fixed in iOS 16.5.1 and macOS 13.4.1. Reachable from the WebContent sandbox and might have been actively exploited. *Note that this CVE fixed multiple integer overflows, so it is unclear whether or not the integer overflow used in my exploit was also used in-the-wild. Moreover, if it was, it might not have been exploited in the same way. The exploit has been successfully tested on: iOS 16.3, 16.3.1, 16.4 and 16.5 (iPhone 14 Pro Max) macOS 13.1 and 13.4 (MacBook Air M2 2022) All code snippets shown below are from xnu-8792.81.2.
A new macOS Trojan-Proxy is riding on cracked versions of legitimate software; it relies on DNS-over-HTTPS to obtain a C&C (command and control) address. Illegally distributed software historically has served as a way to sneak malware onto victims’ devices. Oftentimes, users are not willing to pay for software tools they need, so they go searching the Web for a “free lunch”. They are an excellent target for cybercriminals who realize that an individual looking for a cracked app will be willing to download an installer from a questionable website and disable security on their machine, and so they will be fairly easy to trick into installing malware as well.
N. Korean Hackers 'Mixing' macOS Malware Tactics to Evade Detection
The North Korean threat actors behind macOS malware strains such as RustBucket and KANDYKORN have been observed "mixing and matching" different elements of the two disparate attack chains, leveraging RustBucket droppers to deliver KANDYKORN.
Two apparently separate North Korean crypto theft campaigns targeting macOS users appear to be linked as threat actors mix and match droppers and payloads.