A new strain of macOS malware is raising some alarms in the security industry due to its highly sophisticated mechanisms of distribution, self-destruction, and the mysterious lack of a payload.
News of Macs getting infected with malware is relatively uncommon. However, a new threat that has currently infected almost 30,000 Mac devices has security researchers worried due to its sophisticated nature and lack of available information. Researchers at Red Canary have discovered a new strain of macOS malware which they have dubbed «Silver Sparrow». The malware is strange in numerous ways, with the major one being that it has remained mostly dormant so far. Despite the fact that it communicates with control servers once an hour awaiting potentially malicious binaries to execute, it has deployed no malicious payload as of yet. Furthermore, apart from the Intel x86_64 variant, it also has an Apple M1 counterpart.
