Shlayer Malware Disables macOS Gatekeeper To Run Unsigned Payloads

A new variant of the multi-stage Shlayer malware known to target macOS users has been observed in the wild, now being capable to escalate privileges using a two-year-old technique and to disable the Gatekeeper protection mechanism to run unsigned second stage payloads. Bleeping Computer reports: This new Shlayer variant unearthed by Carbon Black's Threat Analysis Unit (TAU) targets all macOS releases up to the latest 10.14.3 Mojave, and will arrive on the targets' machines as a DMG, PKG, ISO, or ZIP files, some of them also signed with a valid Apple developer ID to make them look legitimate. Shlayer samples found by TAU also use malicious shell scripts to download additional payloads just like older installments did, and, in the case of samples distributed as DMG images, will surreptitiously launch a.command script in the background after the user launches the fake Flash installer. The malicious script included in the DMG is encoded using base64 and will decrypt a second AES encrypted script which will be executed automatically after being decrypted.

One it successfully downloads the second stage malware payload, Shlayer will 'to escalate privileges with sudo using a technique invoking /usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline,' presented by Patrick Wardle in his Death by 1000 Installers talk at DEFCON 2017. The next step is to download extra payloads which all contain adware according to TAU and it makes sure they'll be able to run on the compromised Mac by disabling the Gatekeeper protection mechanism. After this is accomplished, all extra payloads downloaded and launched by Shlayer will be seen as whitelisted software because the OS will no longer check if they are signed with an Apple developer ID. Also, just in case the malware is not able to disable Gatekeeper on the infected Mac, some of the second stage payloads are also signed with valid developer IDs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.