According to a new report from Cyble Research and Intelligence Labs (CRIL), hackers have created a new malware that targets macOS and steals sensitive personal information such as keychain and macOS user account passwords, system information and files in the Desktop folder. and Documents. .

The malware, dubbed Atomic macOS Stealer (AMOS), also targets browsers and looks for information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, cookies, and more. The CRIL study also found that AMOS is specifically targeting cryptocurrency wallets from Atomic, Binance, Coinomi, Electrum, Exodus, and more.

” [threat actor] Behind this hijacker, this malware is constantly being improved and new features are added to make it more effective,” says CRIL, which discovered AMOS on Telegram, a service that offers private messaging channels. On one such channel, the creators of AMOS advertised their malware for $1,000 a month. If someone enlisted the support of AMOS, they would have access to malware, as well as a “web panel to manage victims, metamask brute force to steal seed phrase and private keys, cryptographic verification and a dmg installer, after which it logs via Telegram.

AMOS is distributed through unsigned disk image (.dmg) files, which are commonly used when downloading new applications. When the user opens the .dmg, they are asked to enter the user password for their Mac, which runs the malware. The .dmg file can have filenames that look genuine – on VirusTotal, a website that analyzes suspicious files and tracks them in a database.

The CRIL report follows last week’s report by the MalwareHunterTeam, which found that a team known as LockBit was working on ransomware attacks on macOS. As Wired notes in their report on LockBit, attackers are starting to target Macs more often in an attempt to find new victims.

Apple has protections in macOS and the company releases security patches through OS updates, so it’s important to install them as soon as possible. And, as always, when downloading software, get it from trusted sources like the App Store (which does security checks on their software) or directly from the developer. Macworld has several guides, including a guide on whether you need antivirus software, a list of Mac viruses, malware, and trojans, and a comparison of Mac security software.