Security News > 2021 > February > Mysterious Mac Malware Infected at Least 30,000 Devices Worldwide
Researchers at managed detection and response firm Red Canary have come across a mysterious piece of Mac malware that appears to have infected at least 30,000 devices around the world.
Researchers have come across two variants of the malware, including one designed to run on devices powered by Apple's new M1 chip, which uses the arm64 CPU architecture.
Another piece of malware specifically designed to target devices with M1 chips is a variant of the Pirrit adware and it was detailed last week by Apple security expert Patrick Wardle.
The sample analyzed by Wardle was uploaded to Google's malware analysis service VirusTotal in late December 2020.
In the case of Silver Sparrow, an actual malware file for M1 systems was submitted to VirusTotal on January 22, but one of the domains it used was registered on December 5.
The earliest known variant of the malware - one designed to target pre-M1 systems - was apparently created sometime in August 2020.