New Variant Of UpdateAgent Malware Infects Mac Computers With Adware

 Microsoft on Wednesday shed light on a previously undocumented Mac trojan that it said has undergone several iterations since its first appearance in September 2020, effectively granting it an "increasing progression of sophisticated capabilities."

The company's Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team dubbed the new malware family "UpdateAgent," charting its evolution from a barebones information stealer to a second-stage payload distributor as part of multiple attack waves observed in 2021.

"The latest campaign saw the malware installing the evasive and persistent Adload adware, but UpdateAgent's ability to gain access to a device can theoretically be further leveraged to fetch other, potentially more dangerous payloads," the researchers said.

The actively in-development malware is said to be propagated via drive-by downloads or advertisement pop-ups that masquerade as legitimate software like video applications and support agents, even as the authors have made steady improvements that have transformed UpdateAgent into a progressively persistent piece of malware.

Chief among the advancements include the capability to abuse existing user permissions to surreptitiously perform malicious activities and circumvent macOS Gatekeeper controls, a security feature that ensures only trusted applications from identified developers can be installed on a system.

In addition, UpdateAgent has been found to take advantage of public cloud infrastructure, namely Amazon S3 and CloudFront services, to host its second-stage payloads, including adware, in the form of .DMG or .ZIP files.

Once installed, the Adload malware makes use of ad injection software and man-in-the-middle (MitM) techniques to intercept and reroute users' internet traffic through the attacker's servers to insert rogue ads into web pages and search engine results to increase the chances of multiple infections on the devices.

"UpdateAgent is uniquely characterized by its gradual upgrading of persistence techniques, a key feature that indicates this trojan will likely continue to use more sophisticated techniques in future campaigns," the researchers cautioned.

More articles

1. Pentest Tools Website Vulnerability
2. Hacking Tools Pc
3. Hacker Tools Free Download
4. Hacking Tools For Windows 7
5. Hack Tools Online
6. What Is Hacking Tools
7. Hacker Tool Kit
8. Bluetooth Hacking Tools Kali
9. Hack Tools For Pc
10. Hacking Tools And Software
11. Hackrf Tools
12. Beginner Hacker Tools
13. Hacking Tools Free Download
14. Hack Tools Pc
15. Hacking Tools 2019
16. Android Hack Tools Github
17. Hacking Tools Mac
18. Hacker Tools Online
19. Hack Rom Tools
20. Hacking Apps
21. Hacker Techniques Tools And Incident Handling
22. Pentest Box Tools Download
23. Hack Apps
24. Pentest Tools Windows
25. Pentest Tools Nmap
26. Hacking Tools Hardware
27. Hacker
28. Hacking Tools For Kali Linux
29. Pentest Tools Windows
30. Pentest Tools For Windows
31. Hacker Tools Free
32. Hack Rom Tools
33. Hacker
34. Pentest Recon Tools
35. Pentest Tools Open Source
36. Hack Rom Tools
37. Hacking Tools Windows 10
38. Hacker Tools Windows
39. Hack Tool Apk
40. Pentest Tools For Mac
41. Hack Tools
42. Hacker Tools
43. Hack Tools Online
44. Hacking Tools 2019
45. Hacker Techniques Tools And Incident Handling
46. Pentest Tools Tcp Port Scanner
47. Hack Tools
48. Hacker Tool Kit
49. Hacking Tools For Games
50. Hacker Tools Hardware
51. Hacking Tools For Mac
52. How To Install Pentest Tools In Ubuntu
53. Hacking Tools 2019
54. Pentest Tools Open Source
55. Best Hacking Tools 2019
56. Growth Hacker Tools
57. Hacker Tools Windows
58. Hacking Tools For Kali Linux
59. Hacker Tools Apk
60. Hacker
61. Hack Tools For Windows
62. Pentest Tools Review
63. Hacker Tools For Mac
64. Pentest Tools Find Subdomains
65. Beginner Hacker Tools
66. Hack Tools Download
67. Underground Hacker Sites
68. Hacker Tools For Windows
69. Hack App
70. Pentest Tools Nmap
71. Black Hat Hacker Tools
72. Hacking Tools Free Download
73. Pentest Tools Tcp Port Scanner