Nearly 30,000 Macs are said to be infected with mysterious malware

by



[ad_1]

The malware, which the company calls Silver Sparrow, “does not exhibit the behaviors we expect from the usual adware that so often targets macOS systems,” wrote Tony Lambert, an intelligence analyst at Red Canary.

It is not known what the purpose of the malware is. Silver Sparrow includes a self-destruct mechanism that doesn’t appear to have been used, the researchers said. It is also not known what would trigger this function.

Notably, Silver Sparrow contains code that runs natively on Apple’s internal M1 chip that was released in November, which is only the second malware known to do so, according to the Ars Technica news site.

“While we have yet to observe Silver Sparrow delivering additional malicious payloads, its compatibility with M1 chips, global reach, relatively high infection rate, and operational maturity suggest Silver Sparrow is a reasonably serious threat. “the researchers wrote.

Silver Sparrow has infected Macs in 153 countries as of February 17, with higher concentrations reported in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany, according to data from Malwarebytes, a website that blocks them. ransomware attacks.

[ad_2]

Source link