Security News
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.
Days after the first malware targeting Apple M1 chips was discovered in the wild, researchers have disclosed yet another previously undetected piece of malicious software that was found in about 30,000 Macs running Intel x86 64 and the iPhone maker's M1 processors. Calling the malware "Silver Sparrow," cybersecurity firm Red Canary said it identified two different versions of the malware - one compiled only for Intel x86 64 and uploaded to VirusTotal on August 31, 2020, and a second variant submitted to the database on January 22 that's compatible with both Intel x86 64 and M1 ARM64 architectures.
Silver Sparrow has taken flight in any event: As of February 17, this fresh entry to the malware scene had already infected 29,139 macOS endpoints across 153 countries, according to researchers - primarily in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Now, the Silver Sparrow malware family has appeared on the scene - a brand-new malware built for the Mac M1 ecosystem, researchers said.
Three months after Apple launched its new M1 system-on-a-chip, cybercriminals have developed what may be the first malicious macOS application targeting the mobile giant's first in-house silicon. The main differentiator here is that the application includes code tailored to run on ARM-based M1 processors - rather than only the Intel x86 processors previously utilized by Apple.
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 heap-buffer overflow error exists in V8, an open-source WebAssembly and JavaScript engine developed by the Chromium Project for Google Chrome and Chromium web browsers. Researchers urge Google Chrome users to update as soon as possible.
Roid 11 allows users to enable the Wi-Fi-Enhanced MAC randomization. In the name of privacy, the Google developers made it possible to use a randomized MAC address, starting with Android 8.
The ongoing controversies surrounding TikTok hit a new gear on Thursday with a bombshell report accusing the Chinese company of spying on millions of Android users using a technique banned by Google. The Wall Street Journal said TikTok was exploiting a loophole to collect MAC addresses for at least 15 months.
A cryptocurrency mining campaign targeting macOS is using malware that has evolved into a complex variant giving researchers a lot of trouble analyzing it. A recently observed variant makes analyzing even more difficult as it embeds a run-only AppleScript into another scripts and uses URLs in public web pages to download the actual Monero miner.
The good news is that software exists that can automatically mute your microphone while typing or suppress background noise so that others are not annoyed by the sound of your keyboard. If you commonly talk while typing, are using Windows, or want to suppress all background noise, background noise suppression apps are a better solution.