A report by Elastic Security Labs has pointed out the one single source for about 50% of the malware that’s found on macOS: MacKeeper. The research team at Elastic Security Labs have laid out their findings in their 40-page Global Threat Report for 2022.
“For MacOS file signatures, MacKeeper ranked the highest at ~48% of all detections, with XCS set in the second-place position at not quite 17%. MacKeeper is a utility software suite for macOS endpoints designed to help optimize resources and monitor internal resources. While its initial purpose is to aid MacOS users, often it can be abused by adversaries since it already has extensive permissions and access to processes and files”, says the report.
The report also sheds light on the malware distribution on other operating systems like Windows and Linux. Microsoft Windows was found to be the one OS with the highest distribution of malware when compared to Linux and macOS. According to the report, 54.4% of malware was found on Windows, 39.4% on Linux, and 6.2% was found on macOS. Of all the malware present on the systems, trojans were found to be the most commonly used ones, accounting for 80.5% of the total malware presence. Cryptominers were the next largest malware class to infect the three OS with 11.3%.
Other key takeaways
According to the report, “nearly 41% of credential access alerts attempted to steal application access tokens versus other credentialed materials” and masquerading and system binary proxy execution formed about 72% of all defense evasion techniques. The report also singled out CobaltStrike as “the most popular malicious binary or payload for Windows endpoints with ~35% of all detections”.
“For MacOS file signatures, MacKeeper ranked the highest at ~48% of all detections, with XCS set in the second-place position at not quite 17%. MacKeeper is a utility software suite for macOS endpoints designed to help optimize resources and monitor internal resources. While its initial purpose is to aid MacOS users, often it can be abused by adversaries since it already has extensive permissions and access to processes and files”, says the report.
The report also sheds light on the malware distribution on other operating systems like Windows and Linux. Microsoft Windows was found to be the one OS with the highest distribution of malware when compared to Linux and macOS. According to the report, 54.4% of malware was found on Windows, 39.4% on Linux, and 6.2% was found on macOS. Of all the malware present on the systems, trojans were found to be the most commonly used ones, accounting for 80.5% of the total malware presence. Cryptominers were the next largest malware class to infect the three OS with 11.3%.
Other key takeaways
According to the report, “nearly 41% of credential access alerts attempted to steal application access tokens versus other credentialed materials” and masquerading and system binary proxy execution formed about 72% of all defense evasion techniques. The report also singled out CobaltStrike as “the most popular malicious binary or payload for Windows endpoints with ~35% of all detections”.
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