Traditionally, Mac customers have not needed to fear about malware as a lot as their Home windows-using cousins.
Though malware focusing on Apple gadgets truly predates viruses written for PCs, and there have been some households of malware which have introduced a major menace for each working programs (as an illustration, the Phrase macro viruses that hit computer systems onerous from 1995 onwards), it’s typically the case that you simply’re merely so much much less prone to encounter malware in your Mac than you’re in your Home windows PC.
However that does not imply that Mac customers ought to be complacent. And the latest discovery of a brand new malware pressure emphasises that the menace – even when a lot smaller than on Home windows – stays actual.
Safety researchers at SentinelOne have warned that the brand new malware, dubbed “NotLockBit”, is focusing on macOS programs – suggesting that cybercriminals are in search of victims who might have made the error of being extra relaxed about their laptop safety.
Though it was initially suspected that the malware was linked to the infamous LockBit ransomware gang, additional evaluation means that the menace is a definite pressure falsely claiming affiliation.
In what may virtually be described as a “false-flag” operation, NotLockBit makes use of LockBit’s signature desktop wallpaper in what appears to be an try to mislead victims and safety researchers of its origin.
NotLockBit claims to be model 2.0, and but LockBit 3.0 was launched a while in the past, and key members of the LockBit gang have been arrested and its infrastructure seized.
Earlier ransomware threats towards macOS customers have been largely proof-of-concept or have not turn out to be widespread.
The real LockBit ransomware group was accountable for producing a model of its ransomware for macOS final yr, however as a result of it was buggy and crashed simply it was not thought of a severe menace.
The brand new malware analysed by SentinelOne’s researchers has been distributed as an x86-64 binary – which means that it’s going to solely run on Intel-based Macs and Macs utilizing the Rosetta emulation service.
In accordance with specialists NotLockBit seems to be “very a lot in improvement,” and there are at the moment no identified victims of the malware or proof that it’s being actively distributed within the wild.
However in case you had been to come across NotLockBit, on a Mac that would run it, then it might try to exfiltrate recordsdata out of your laptop to AWS cloud storage buckets, encrypting information left behind in your Mac and including a .abcd suffix to their filenames.
The rapid menace of this explicit ransomware pattern has been diminished by its discovery, after the menace actors introduced it to the eye of researchers by importing to VirusTotal (seemingly in an try to see if any anti-virus merchandise would detect it as malicious).
That act prompted the safety group to take motion, and the AWS accounts utilized by the hackers throughout the data-exfiltration course of have been eliminated.
However we’d be silly to suppose that extra work gained’t be carried out on this and different Mac ransomware within the months and years forward. As ever, firms whose staff use Macs can be smart to guard them with safety options to cut back the prospect of them being the weak hyperlink by means of which a malicious hacker can wreak havoc all through an organisation.
Editor’s Word: The opinions expressed on this visitor creator article are solely these of the contributor and don’t essentially replicate these of Tripwire.
