Mac Malware Now Distributed Free of Cost on the Dark Web

There is an increasing business in underbelly of Dark Web marketplace. It is known as malware-as-a-service, and it is the place where the developers sell the malicious software tools to keen buyers. Their model of business even imitates mainstream marketplaces of software.

The perception that the systems of Mac are protected from malware is just completely wrong. Although Macs can be less vulnerable to malware than PCs based on Windows, but they are surely not exempted from the security threats. 2 other security outfits have issued warnings of separate threats targeting the users of Mac. One of them relates to the ransomware, where documents and files of a user have been encrypted as well as held hostage till the time ransom amount is paid; and other is the spyware application which sniffs out the sensitive information.

Security firm AlienVault and Fortinet discovered the malware on one portal, which is presented as shopfront on the network of "dark web". Fortinet posted a blog stating that creators responsible for these attacks are "engineers at Yahoo and Facebook with extensive experience in software development."

Deccanchronicle.com posted on June 14th, 2017, quoting Fortinet as saying that this program is actually for those people who desires to secretly retaliate another user of Mac, or earn easy money from family and friends."

On the dark web portal, the developers requested those who are interested in using the program to contact and then provide the details of the way they wanted malware to be set up. To find out more, the Fortinet posed as buyers and thus soon obtained a sample of malware from the developers.

Apple computers are targeted by around 450,000 malware, far less than the 23 Mn malicious programs that are targeting windows. MacSpy free version can do many nefarious tricks, like logging keystrokes, taking the screen capture in every 30 sec., plucking photographs from the devices of iPhone as soon as the iCloud syncs them to a Mac, snooping browser histories, recording audio, and many more.

Alien Vault said that "while this piece of Mac malware may not be the most stealthy program, it is feature rich and it goes to show that as OS X continues to grow in market share and we can expect malware authors to invest greater amounts of time in producing malware for this platform."

» SPAMfighter News - 6/21/2017