Security News > 2021 > February > Mac Malware Targeting Apple's M1 Chip Emerges
A researcher has spotted the first piece of Mac malware that appears to have been created specifically for devices with Apple's recently introduced M1 chip.
Wardle has developed several free and open source security tools for Macs, and came up with the idea to look for malware designed to run natively on M1 systems while rebuilding his tools for native M1 compatibility.
The M1 chip uses the arm64 CPU architecture and apps developed specifically for Macs powered by the M1 contain arm64 code.
"Apple's new M1 systems offer a myriad of benefits, and natively compiled arm64 code runs blazingly fast. Today, we highlighted the fact that malware authors have now joined the ranks of developerscompiling their code to arm64 to gain natively binary compatibility with Apple's latest hardware," Wardle said in a blog post.
Thomas Reed, director of Mac & Mobile at cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, told SecurityWeek that while this was inevitable, M1-native malware should not be a major concern for M1-powered Mac users.
"As an industry we have observed that the criminals behind Mac adware have demonstrated the most adaptability with macOS. I was less than surprised we saw this first happen in Pirrit, as it's one of the oldest and most active Mac adware families - who are constantly changing to evade detection," Reed said.