Silver Sparrow Virus Takes 30,000 MacOS Devices by Storm
When malware actors plant a virus onto targeted machines, they usually do it retrieve sensitive data, extort money, execute arbitrary code, and so on. To do that, they deploy all sorts of malicious apps. Recent findings in the field of cyber security, however, may have come across a malware strain that behaves as an exception to the rule. Dubbed Silver Sparrow, the malware in question got a grip of close to thirty thousand Mac-based configurations in no time, yet it doesn’t seem to have the slightest intention of doing any damage whatsoever for the time being.
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The Scope is Too Big to Ignore
Although researchers have yet to find any intrusive features in Silver Sparrow, they’ll be keeping a wary eye on the virus because the sheer magnitude of its distribution was enough to set alarm bells ringing. A detailed analysis of the malware strain revealed that the latter may have been configured to bring in additional payloads upon further commands. However, no such instances appear to have taken place so far.
Apple Has Already Patched the Hole
Silver Sparrow has adopted a novel infection vector to succeed in infecting that many MacOS systems. Apparently, it exploited flaws in the macOS JavaScript API Installer, which is something no other piece of malware has done before. Silver Sparrow also appears to have leveraged security holes in a few developer certificates. While Apple has not provided specific details about the flaws, it revoked the problematic certificates to prevent the virus from spreading over to any more devices. The tech giant reportedly carried out its own research, confirming that the Silver Sparrow virus planted no more malicious models while the compromised certificates were still active.
Beware of Further Infections
Even though the Silver Sparrow phenomenon ultimately did no significant damage, it did manage to infiltrate tens of thousands of macOS-based computers in more than 150 countries before you know it. The strain reached many targets in a very short time, and that says a lot. Silver Sparrow’s binary was apparently built in compliance with the new M1 ARM64 Apple chip. Like other similar malware strains, this one also gained persistence on targeted machines via a LaunchAgent. The latter practically let the actors behind Silver Sparrow execute commands at their discretion. Altogether, its overall high efficiency turn Silver Sparrow into a potentially dangerous malware distribution vehicle capable of causing widespread concern over any future malicious raids.