Maccontrol Trojan Being Used In Targeted Attacks Against Os X Users

snoopy · Apr 2, 2012

MacControl Trojan Being Used in Targeted Attacks Against OS X Users
by Dennis Fisher

Welcome to the age of targeted attacks, Mac users. Perhaps having grown tired of owning Windows machines around the world for the last few years, attackers in China now have taken up the challenge of going after Macs with the same kind of targeted attack tactics that have served them so well in the Windows world.

Researchers have found a new attack that employs two separate pieces of malware, a malicious Word document and some techniques for maintaining persistence on compromised machines, and the campaign is specifically targeted at Mac users. The command-and-control domain involved in the attack is located in China and the attack exploits a three-year-old vulnerability in the way that Office for Mac handles certain Word files, according to researchers at AlienVault, who discovered and analyzed the attacks.

"A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that Microsoft Office Word handles a specially crafted Word file that includes a malformed record. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. When the victim opens the malicious Word file using Office for Mac, the shellcode writes the malicious payload on disk and executes it, and then opens a benign office file," Jaime Blasco of AlienVault wrote in an analysis of the attacks.

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https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/maccontrol-trojan-being-used-targeted-attacks-against-os-x-users-032812?utm_source=Threatpost&utm_medium=Left+Sidebar&utm_campaign=Most+Commented

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