New malware MaMi hits MacOS

Way back in 2012, we faced DNSChanger malware which affected millions of Windows PCs and in the first week of 2018 we have observed the emergence of a DNSChanger malware for MacOS. The threat was first discovered by Patrick Wardel and has been named as MaMi.

Similar to DNSChanger, MaMi's infection vector involves various recently registered domains from where it is downloaded and subsequently installed. Post infection, MaMi forcibly changes the DNS entry and also installs a root certificate. Furthermore, it is highly persistent and reverts back to malicious DNS entries, when victims manually try to change it.

Previously, there existed another malware which infected windows Systems "DNSUnlocker" incidentally used the same subnet. Furthermore, the root certificates which are installed on the victim’s systems too are similar.

How does MaMi function?

* Installs a local certificate – Installation of root certificate allows the threat to perform an effective MITM attack, which may range from stealing logon credentials to ad insertions.

* Set up custom DNS settings – The DNS IP added by MaMi are under the control of the criminals and they may resolve every request by the victims and redirect them to malicious domains or advertisements controlled by the criminals.

* Take screenshots – of the desktop

* Run AppleScripts – Ability to execute script allows the Trojan to execute tasks, as per the defined payload

* Get OS launch persistence – At system start-up load itself

* Download and upload files – Allows to steal sensitive files and in all probability download additional modules / scripts

Tags: malware MaMi, MacOS, DNSChanger malware, Patrick Wardel, DNSUnlocker, MITM attack, varindia