There is a lot that we don’t know or understand in our world these days. Now, some researchers have discovered something else that is potentially scary and about which they don’t know a lot. It’s a new malware that is targeting Mac OS devices and has infected nearly 30,000 of them to date. Thing is, they don’t know how it gets on the devices or what it does once it’s found its nest.
The malware, dubbed Silver Sparrow, it just sits there waiting. The researchers at Red Canary, Malwarebytes, and VMWare Carbon Black are all a bit baffled by this. They were able to get it to infect their test devices, but then it just stayed there, presumably waiting for commands. But those commands never came during the time they were testing.
However, they want to warn that it doesn’t mean this isn’t a dangerous strain. In fact, they suspect it is quite dangerous, but is waiting to hatch in its own time. It is possible, they think, that it’s able to detect it is on a test system and therefore, isn’t revealing its payload.
In any case, Mac users should use extra caution and keep an eagle eye out for any type of phishing email, texts, or voice messages that might be up to no good. If you receive something that is unexpected, is from an unknown sender, that you cannot independently verify is legitimate, or just have your sixth sense put on alert, don’t click anything. If you receive a phone call that seems odd and the caller wants any information from you such as payment card info, names, addresses, social security numbers, or any other type of personal information, consider that the worm at the end of the phishing lure. Don’t take the bait.
Another suspected delivery method of this malware is within Adobe Flash updates. Remember, there is no Flash plugin for the MacOS. So, don’t get duped with that one.
In the meantime, be sure to keep all of your Mac devices updated with the latest software and patches. As of writing, Silver Sparrow has infected 29,139 macOS endpoints across 153 countries. High instances were detected in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany.