Google on Thursday shared details about a recent attack that exploited a zero-day vulnerability in macOS to deliver malware to users in Hong Kong.
According to Google, the attack, discovered in late August, was likely conducted by a well-resourced state-sponsored threat group which, based on the quality of their code, had access to their own software engineering team.
While Google has not named any country, users in Hong Kong have been typically targeted by threat actors sponsored by China.
The watering hole involved the websites of a media outlet and an important pro-democracy labor and political group in Hong Kong. The sites hosted two iframes that served iOS and macOS exploits.
In the case of the iOS exploit, Google researchers could not obtain the full exploit chain, but they did discover that it involved a framework based on the Ironsquirrel browser exploit delivery project and exploitation of an older remote code execution vulnerability tracked as CVE-2019-8506.
The macOS exploit, however, leveraged a remote code execution vulnerability in WebKit — tracked as CVE-2021-1789 and patched by Apple in January — and a privilege escalation flaw that was only patched by Apple on September 23, roughly one month after Google spotted the attack.
When it patched the zero-day, tracked as CVE-2021-30869, Apple warned that it had been exploited in attacks. The security hole is a type confusion in XNU, the OS kernel used by both iOS and macOS, and it can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
When Google analyzed the macOS exploits, a parameter set up by the attackers to record the number of exploitation attempts had a value of roughly 200.
The Mac malware delivered in the attack can capture keystrokes, take screenshots, fingerprint compromised devices, upload and download files, execute terminal commands, and record audio.
Security researcher Patrick Wardle has published a blog post detailing the malware, which he has named OSX.CDDS — the name CDDS comes from a string format related to the malware’s features.
The malware sample analyzed by Wardle had not been detected by any of the antivirus engines on the VirusTotal malware analysis service.
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing 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.
More from Eduard Kovacs
- Exploitation of 55 Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Came to Light in 2022: Mandiant
- Organizations Notified of Remotely Exploitable Vulnerabilities in Aveva HMI, SCADA Products
- Waterfall Security, TXOne Networks Launch New OT Security Appliances
- Hitachi Energy Blames Data Breach on Zero-Day as Ransomware Gang Threatens Firm
- New York Man Arrested for Running BreachForums Cybercrime Website
- Exploitation of Recent Fortinet Zero-Day Linked to Chinese Cyberspies
- Mozilla Patches High-Severity Vulnerabilities With Release of Firefox 111
- Microsoft: 17 European Nations Targeted by Russia in 2023 as Espionage Ramping Up
Latest News
- Verosint Launches Account Fraud Detection and Prevention Platform
- Ransomware Gang Publishes Data Allegedly Stolen From Maritime Firm Royal Dirkzwager
- Zoom Paid Out $3.9 Million in Bug Bounties in 2022
- Oleria Scores $8M Seed Funding for ID Authentication Technology
- Exploitation of 55 Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Came to Light in 2022: Mandiant
- News Analysis: UK Commits $3 Billion to Support National Quantum Strategy
- Malicious NuGet Packages Used to Target .NET Developers
- Google Pixel Vulnerability Allows Recovery of Cropped Screenshots
