Malvertisers target Mac users with steganographic code stashed in images

Enlarge / One of the malicious ads displayed in a campaign from VeryMal. (credit: Confiant)
Researchers have uncovered a recent malicious advertisement campaign that’s notable for its size, scope, and resourcefulness: a two-day blitz triggered as many as 5 million times per day that used highly camouflaged JavaScript stashed in images to install a trojan on visitors' Macs.
The ads were served by a group security firm Confiant has dubbed VeryMal, a name that comes from veryield-malyst.com, one of the ad-serving domains the group uses. A run that was active from January 11 to January 13 on about 25 of the top 100 publisher sites triggered the image as many as 5 million times a day. In an attempt to bypass increasingly effective measures available to detect malicious ads, the images used steganography—the ancient practice of hiding code, messages, or other data inside images or text—to deliver its malicious payload to Mac-using visitors.
In a blog post published Wednesday, Confiant researcher Eliya Stein wrote:
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