A piece of malware named Atomic macOS Stealer, or AMOS, has been delivered by cybercriminals through a malvertising campaign, Malwarebytes warned on Wednesday.
AMOS emerged in the spring, when its creators started advertising it for $1,000 per month, promising a wide range of data theft capabilities. Its authors claimed the malware could steal keychain passwords, browser data, cryptocurrency wallets, and files from the compromised device.
According to Malwarebytes, AMOS is mostly distributed through cracked software downloads, but the company recently observed it being delivered through a malvertising campaign.
Cybercriminals set up a fake website for the TradingView financial market tracking app and advertised the site on Google using a hacked advertiser account apparently belonging to an entity in Belarus.
The fake TradingView website is hosted on trabingviews[.]com, with special font characters being used to make it look like the legitimate domain and help it avoid detection.
The malicious website is designed to look authentic, claiming to offer downloads for the TradingView app’s Windows, macOS and Linux versions.
While the Windows and Linux files deliver the NetSupport RAT, the Mac file delivers the AMOS malware.
Once executed, the macOS malware provides instructions for opening it without getting blocked by Apple’s GateKeeper security feature.
“The malware is bundled in an ad-hoc signed app meaning it’s not an Apple certificate, so it cannot be revoked. Once executed, it will keep prompting for the user password in a never ending loop until victims finally relent and type it in,” Malwarebytes explained.
Logs show that the malware attempts to collect and exfiltrate passwords, autofill data, wallets, cookies, and keychain data.
Targeting TradingView makes sense since users who are looking for the market tracking application are more likely to use software that provides access to money or cryptocurrencies.
Traders were recently targeted by a financially motivated cybercrime group that exploited a WinRAR zero-day vulnerability to deliver malware that enabled them to steal victims’ money.
Related: Many of 13 New Mac Malware Families Discovered in 2022 Linked to China
Related: New hVNC macOS Malware Advertised on Hacker Forum
Related: Iranian Cyberspies Target US-Based Think Tank With New macOS Malware
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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