Friday, April 18, 2025
HomeAppleInfamous Lazarus APT Hackers Group Attack Mac Computers With Fileless Malware

Infamous Lazarus APT Hackers Group Attack Mac Computers With Fileless Malware

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

A Researcher from K7 Labs observed a new wave of fileless malware distributed by Lazarus APT Hackers Group to infects the MacOS users and delivers the fake cryptocurrency trading application.

Infamous Lazarus group involved various cyber-attack that GBHackers reported in the past, and its already targeted several financial organizations around the world using various advanced tools and techniques.

It is a rare scenario that the macOS malware goes fileless, and is a sign of APT’s are finding new methods to attack the mac world.

- Advertisement - Google News

K7 labs observed the trojanized version of UnionCryptoTrader.dmg file, which is identified as a container of the Cryptocurrency trading application and a loader. 

Threat actors created a new malicious website (Union Cryto Trader),  unioncrypto.vip just for 1 year to deliver the fake cryptocurrency trading application and the site is resolving to 104.168.167.16.

Researchers believe that the campaign could have been active since June 2019, and its delivered the UnionCryptoTrader.dmg file had no digital signature.

The files act as a container for a Cryptocurrency trading application and a loader that is capable of to load a remote payload directly from memory rather than via a file on disk, said Dinesh from K7 via a blog post.

Malware Infection Process

Lazarus targeting the various Cryptocurrency trading application and this is one of the methods of trojanising a Mac application to steal the cryptocurrency.

Actors placed a persistent backdoor resource directory of an open-source trading application, and they are leveraging the post-install script to trigger their backdoor via a legitimate installation process.

post-install script

“In this case, the post-install script is a shell script executes the loader (unioncryptoupdater) and the persistence file (vip.unioncrypto.plist) residing in the resource directory”

Once the Shell script gets successfully executed, the loader collects Mac’s serial number and OS information and shares these data to the Lazarus via C&C server.

In response, attackers send the remote payload, which undergoes a base64 decode followed by AES decryption.

According to the K7 report, the function called ProcessUpdate is responsible for executing the decrypted remote payload either directly in memory or after writing to a file on disk with executable permissions.

This attack indicates that macOS malware keeps evolving and becoming more sophisticated. 

You can also read the complete technical write about this Mac malware from objective-see by Patrick Wardle.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

UnionCryptoTrader.dmg – Trojan ( 0001140e1 )

Hash: 2ab58b7ce583402bf4cbc90bee643ba5f9503461f91574845264d4f7e3ccb390

Also Read:

New Mac Malware OSX/Linker Bypasses Zero-day Flaw in macOS Gatekeeper Protection

Mac Malware Steals Cookies & saved Passwords when Users Visiting Crypto Exchange Service Websites

Balaji
Balaji
BALAJI is an Ex-Security Researcher (Threat Research Labs) at Comodo Cybersecurity. Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder - Cyber Security News & GBHackers On Security.

Latest articles

How To Detect Obfuscated Malware That Evades Static Analysis Tools

Obfuscated malware presents one of the most challenging threats in cybersecurity today. As static...

How Security Analysts Detect and Prevent DNS Tunneling Attack In Enterprise Networks

DNS tunneling represents one of the most sophisticated attack vectors targeting enterprise networks today,...

How to Conduct a Cloud Security Assessment

Cloud adoption has transformed organizations' operations but introduces complex security challenges that demand proactive...

U.S DOGE Allegedly Breached – Whistleblower Leaked Most Sensitive Documents

A federal whistleblower has accused the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of orchestrating a...

Resilience at Scale

Why Application Security is Non-Negotiable

The resilience of your digital infrastructure directly impacts your ability to scale. And yet, application security remains a critical weak link for most organizations.

Application Security is no longer just a defensive play—it’s the cornerstone of cyber resilience and sustainable growth. In this webinar, Karthik Krishnamoorthy (CTO of Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface), will share how AI-powered application security can help organizations build resilience by

Discussion points


Protecting at internet scale using AI and behavioral-based DDoS & bot mitigation.
Autonomously discovering external assets and remediating vulnerabilities within 72 hours, enabling secure, confident scaling.
Ensuring 100% application availability through platforms architected for failure resilience.
Eliminating silos with real-time correlation between attack surface and active threats for rapid, accurate mitigation

More like this

KeyPlug Malware Server Leak Exposes Fortinet Firewall and VPN Exploitation Tools

Cybersecurity researchers have stumbled upon a treasure trove of operational tools and scripts linked...

Researchers Uncover Stealthy Tactics and Techniques of StrelaStealer Malware

Cybersecurity experts have recently shed light on the sophisticated operations of StrelaStealer, also known...

XorDDoS Malware Upgrade Enables Creation of Advanced DDoS Botnets

Cisco Talos has uncovered significant advancements in the XorDDoS malware ecosystem, revealing a multi-layered...