Microsoft stated it has found a brand new variant of a identified Apple macOS malware referred to as XCSSET as a part of restricted assaults within the wild.
“Its first identified variant since 2022, this newest XCSSET malware options enhanced obfuscation strategies, up to date persistence mechanisms, and new an infection methods,” the Microsoft Menace Intelligence staff stated in a put up shared on X.
“These enhanced options add to this malware household’s beforehand identified capabilities, like concentrating on digital wallets, gathering information from the Notes app, and exfiltrating system info and information.”
XCSSET is a classy modular macOS malware that is identified to focus on customers by infecting Apple Xcode tasks. It was first documented by Pattern Micro in August 2020.
Subsequent iterations of the malware have been discovered to adapt to compromise newer variations of macOS in addition to Apple’s personal M1 chipsets. In mid-2021, the cybersecurity firm famous that XCSSET had been up to date to exfiltrate information from numerous apps like Google Chrome, Telegram, Evernote, Opera, Skype, WeChat, and Apple first-party apps corresponding to Contacts and Notes.
One other report from Jamf across the identical time revealed the malware’s skill to take advantage of CVE-2021-30713, a Transparency, Consent, and Management (TCC) framework bypass bug, as a zero-day to take screenshots of the sufferer’s desktop with out requiring further permissions.
Then, over a yr later, it was up to date once more so as to add assist for macOS Monterey. As of writing, the origins of the malware stay unknown.
The newest findings from Microsoft mark the primary main revision since 2022, utilizing improved obfuscation strategies and persistence mechanisms which can be geared toward difficult evaluation efforts and making certain that the malware is launched each time a brand new shell session is initiated.
One other novel method XCSSET units up persistence entails downloading a signed dockutil utility from a command-and-control server to handle the dock gadgets.
“The malware then creates a faux Launchpad software and replaces the official Launchpad’s path entry within the dock with this faux one,” Microsoft stated. “This ensures that each time the Launchpad is began from the dock, each the official Launchpad and the malicious payload are executed.”