In late 2021, Volexity discovered an intrusion in an environment monitored as part of its Network Security Monitoring service. Volexity detected a system running frp, otherwise known as fast reverse proxy, and subsequently detected internal port scanning shortly afterward. This traffic was determined to be unauthorized and the system, a MacBook Pro running macOS 11.6 (Big Sur), was isolated for further forensic analysis. Volexity was able to run Surge Collect to acquire system memory (RAM) and select files of interest from the machine for analysis. This led to the discovery of a macOS variant of a malware implant Volexity calls GIMMICK. Volexity has encountered Windows versions of the malware family on several previous occasions. GIMMICK is used in targeted attacks by Storm Cloud, a Chinese espionage threat actor known to attack organizations across Asia. It is a feature-rich, multi-platform malware family that uses public cloud hosting services (such as Google […]
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Storm Cloud on the Horizon: GIMMICK Malware Strikes at macOS
March 22, 2022
by Damien Cash, Steven Adair, Thomas Lancaster
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Real News, Fake Flash: Mac OS X Users Targeted
July 24, 2017
by Volexity
Volexity recently identified a breach to the website of a well regarded media outlet in the country of Georgia. As part of this breach, the media organization’s website was being leveraged as a component of a malware campaign targeting select visitors. The news organization provides reporting on its website in English, Georgian, and Russian. However, only the Georgian language portion of the website was impacted and used in an effort to distribute malware. The targets were then further narrowed to those that were running the Mac OS X operating system, had not previously visited the website, and had specific browser versions. The attackers accomplished much of this with JavaScript they placed on the media organization’s website. The following JavaScript code was observed on the index page of the Georgian language portion of the website. The attackers appear to have implemented multiple checks to make sure they limited the targeting and […]