'Dumb' MacOS Malware Attacks Slack, Discord Users Discussing Crypto
July 03 2018 - 8:48AM
ADVFN Crypto NewsWire
Security researchers have discovered MacOS malware
attacks targeting Slack and Discord users talking
about cryptocurrencies, SC Media UK reports July 2.
Remco Verhoef, founder of network security firm
DutchSec, posted about the malware on June 30th in a blog post for the information
security and cybersecurity training Sans Institute.
According to Verhoef, the attacks impersonate
administrators or “key people” in crypto-related chats, and then
share “small snippets” that are downloaded and execute a malicious
binary. SC Media UK notes that the malware can steal user passwords
and store them on the local machine as well, which Verhoef
identifies as German provider CrownCloud’s apparently
Netherland-based server.
Patrick Wardle of Digital Security posted on Objective-See on June 29 about the Mac-targeted
malware attacks, writing that “apparently attackers are asking
users to infect themselves” with a “rather massive machO
binary.”
Wardle concludes his blog post by naming the malware
“OSX.Dummy” for a variety of reasons that he lists in bullet
points:
- “the infection method is dumb
- the massive size of the binary is dumb
- the persistence mechanism is lame (and thus also dumb)
- the capabilities are rather limited (and thus rather dumb)
- it's trivial to detect at every step (that dumb)
- ...and finally, the malware saves the user's password to
dumpdummy”
According to threat intelligence analyst at Unit 42,
Palo Alto Networks, Alex Hinchliffe, attacks like this will
“improve over time,” and multi-factor authentication should be used
for joining an organization’s chat room.
Earlier today, reports broke of a new attack on
Bitcoin (BTC) users — monitoring 2.3
million targets — which consists of gaining control of Windows
clipboards to swap out a user’s BTC address for that of the
attacker. And last week, a cybersecurity report from McAfee Labs stated
that cryptojacking instances have risen 629 percent in the first
quarter of 2018.
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