New Mac OS X malware with DDoS functionality spotted in the wild

Security researchers from multiple companies, have spotted a new Mac OS X malware. Dubbed ‘Tsunami’, the malware’s primary goal is to act as platform for executing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

What’s particularly interesting about this backdoor, is the fact that malware coders have ported the malware bot from Linux to Mac OS X in an attempt to enter the Mac OS X market segment.

See also:

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More on the malware:

In addition to enabling DDoS attacks, the backdoor can enable a remote user to download files, such as additional malware or updates to the Tsunami code.  The malware can also execute shell commands, giving it the ability to essentially take control of the affected machine. In terms of functionality, the Mac variant of the backdoor is similar to its older Linux brother, with only the IRC server, channel and password changed and the greatest difference being that it’s a 64-bit Mach-O binary instead of an ELF binary.

The malware is currently detected as OSX/Tsunami-A.

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