What a Mac malware attack looks like
Summary: Remember last month when I showed you a malware attack that was targeting Google Chrome users? In a follow-up post, I wondered whether Macs would be far behind. Today I found one such attack, in the wild, that directly targets Mac users. Here are the screens to prove it.
After I posted my analysis of why the time is right for bad guys to begin attacking the Mac in earnest, I heard from two readers who had encountered in-the-wild attacks on Macs in their respective workplaces. In both cases, the results showed up via Google Image Search. (This is an increasingly common source of malware, as security researcher Brian Krebs points out in a well-timed blog post today.)
I was able to duplicate these results and encountered an identical attempt from this same campaign to convince me to install a rather nasty Trojan on a Mac. (Sophos has an analysis of what this particular species does.) I uploaded the sample—a Mac installer package in a Zip file—to Virustotal.com, which confirmed that it is indeed the same code.
Remember last month when I showed you a malware attack that was targeting Google Chrome users? In a follow-up post, I wondered whether Macs would be far behind. They aren’t.
I just did a search for radioactive tsunami waves on Google and then clicked the Images button. On the second page of search results, I found one that looked legit:
When I clicked it on a PC, it redirected me to a fake AV screen that mimicked a Windows security screen. But when I did the same search on a Mac, clicking the poisoned image took me to this page:
This campaign is obviously preying on the fears of recent Mac converts and technical unsophisticates, who might believe that their Mac really is infected. After that, it tried to convince me to install the program using the same set of social engineering tricks that this sort of attack employs on a Windows PC.
Interestingly, just as on a PC, Firefox showed me a download prompt and asked me whether I wanted to save the file or not. Google Chrome downloaded the dangerous file automatically without any prompts and saved it in my Downloads folder.
It is easy to dismiss this as a crude attempt, and indeed, I don’t think many people are likely to fall for this attack. But dismissing this sample because it's not particularly well done is like dismissing an entire computing platform because of a single poorly written app.
It is possible that this particular poisoned page contained image files or script intended to exploit a known vulnerability in OS X. According to a 2010 Google study of search poisoning, 14% of all the compromised sites they saw included drive-by download attempts in addition to this sort of social engineering. If someone visits this page on a system that doesn’t include all recent updates for OS X and their browser, they could be extremely vulnerable.
And note that the bad guys get better over time. This attack might be crude, but that doesn’t mean the next one will be. I have seen some remarkably effective phishing attempts. In the hands of a skilled gang of thieves, this approach could cull out the weaker members of the Mac herd and create some genuine headaches for the friends or co-workers who have to provide emergency technical support.
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Talkback
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
My guess: a lot.
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
There is no number, Gruber is so far up Jobs' backside he hasn't seen sunlight in a decade.
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
No doubt you've been down the other side.
lol...
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=radioactive+tsunami+waves&qpvt=radioactive+tsunami+waves&FORM=Z7FD
Again: the **reality** is 2 attacks on Macs against 40000 on PCs per week
<i>Eric Hellweg, MIT Technology Review, <b>October 2004: ?Hackers Target Apple?</b> Congratulations!?:
The Apple community has, since its inception, been largely immune to nefarious hackers bent on spreading harm. If you are a Windows user, as I am, you know the routine. You complain about the latest spyware or virus attack, and Apple devotees respond with good-natured teasing ? they don?t have worry about such nonsense. Well, now they do.
Predictably, posts on various Apple-related message boards have been offering varying levels of concern, ranging from mild disappointment to utter gloom. I think this reaction is fundamentally misguided. MAC users should not be upset about this malware news; they should rejoice.
</i>
Full list of these "doom and gloom" predictions that never stopped each year:
http://daringfireball.net/2011/05/wolf
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
There's a definite trend.
@ewelch
A Trojan is one delivery vector for malware, one subset of which is viruses. Do you know the difference between a virus and a worm? Probably not.
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
"There's a definite trend."
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
But hearing again the same old tirade about how Mac and Linux user falsely claim to be "immune", is no longer amusing. Linux and Mac users have never made that claim. What they do claim, with total justification, is to be "relatively immune". "Relative" to Windows, both are practically bulletproof.
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
I wish you could be a fly on the wall too
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
Message has been deleted.
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
@Lester Young :
Please, PLEASE point me to the post, and post, where John Gruber states that there will Never be a threat to Mac OS / OS X!
Your comment that Gruber and his followers insist that the "waters could never reach their doorsteps" is accusing just that--that people believe it's impossible? Please, show me a single example of what you accuse.
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
<br><br>Regards the flash talk , i now a days dont have it running on my mac, like people have said about using it with chorome for those needs, to me its just slwoing my day to day activicues with <a href="http://brighteyesdrops.com/glaucoma-symptoms/" style="color: #353535">glaucoma symptoms</a> it just becomes a pain in the butt.. reading now about it has securty risks has just made me not wanna even run it in the lesser times that i " have " to use it. For me, websites now a days should all take in the fact that html5 is here and is going to remove flash totally from the need to even have flash on a website - that you want to be interactive ( off course including the goodness of css3 ).<br><br>I think by the sounds of it in terms of flash - dont use it u really dont have to, and enjoy life that html5 is bring to our great industry for the users and developers of course, and this improving the risk of infections to our macs
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
RE: What a Mac malware attack looks like
This isn't a hole. It is a web page that asks the user to install the Trojan. You are reacting like this is an automatic piece of malware, like you are used to on Windows. It isn't.
the proper approach to take would be for Apple to enable the BSD user/admin model that is there under all the glitz. But, that might make the Apple users have to think. It'll never happen.
Message has been deleted.