A study published on Sunday suggests that North Korean government hackers have found an innovative way to attack Apple Mac devices .
The infamous Lazarus organization , believed to be funded by the North Korean government, is attempting to hack into Mac devices through a fake Cryptocurrency software .
According to Apple Mac security expert and principal security researcher at Jamf, Patrick Wardle: The hackers created a fake company with an official website, called JMT Trading.
They also created an open-source Cryptocurrency trading app and published it on GitHub. However, this code was hiding malwarethat, when downloaded to a Mac computer, would allow the hacker to take control of the device. As Wardle stated in a blog post: “The ability to execute commands remotely clearly gives a remote attacker complete and extensible control over the infected macOS.”
Hackers could then contact administrators and users on Cryptocurrency trading platforms, asking them to test and evaluate their new application, thus gaining access to an even larger target audience.
North Korea has repeatedly attempted to hack into cryptocurrency funds, and has had some success. In August, it was reported that it had made up to $2 billion through a series of attacks on banks and companies involved in cryptocurrency. Some of this money appears to be funding the state’s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
This latest macOS attack attempt follows a strategy similar to a previous campaign detected by Kaspersky in August 2018. In this case, a fake Cryptocurrency company was also created.
However, Wardle says that ordinary citizens are not at risk of being infected by this malware, only those who work for a cryptocurrency exchange.
