The world of macOS malware has a new member that makes no effort to keep appearances and looks rather like a bare-bones version that is still under development.

Its functionality is limited to taking screenshots and running a backdoor. This, coupled with the lack of a proper facade earned it the name of OSX.LamePyre.

Disguised as a copy of the Discord messaging app for gamers, the malware was discovered last Friday by Malwarebytes’ threat researcher Adam Thomas, who noticed that the guise did not go beyond the initial concealment.

He says that “this copy of Discord didn’t seem to do anything, because it was actually an Automator script that did nothing for the user.”

Nothing but a generic icon

When LamePyre runs on the system, users see the generic Automator icon in the menu bar, which is typical for any script of this sort.

The script decodes a payload written in Python and runs it on the victim host. It then starts to take pictures and upload them to the attacker’s command and control (C2) server.

Thomas noticed that one part of the Python code was written to set up the open source EmPyre backdoor on the system. This particular backdoor has been seen with another malware strain for macOS, DarthMiner, which integrated cryptocurrency mining capabilities.

LamePyre seems either like a poor job or a threat under development as it does not include functionality that would allow it to pass as a legitimate Discord messenger.

“It is not a maliciously-modified copy of the Discord app. It doesn’t even include and launch a copy of the Discord app, which it could do easily as a subterfuge to make the app look legit. For that matter, it doesn’t even use a convincing icon!” Malwarebytes says.

To keep the malicious code running, the author included code that sets up a launch agent with the deceptive name ‘com.apple.systemkeeper.plist.’

Given the behavior of the malware, chances are users won’t realize that something is out of place soon enough and LamePyre would have already opened the backdoor and delivered some screenshots to the attacker.

December, the month of macOS malware

This month has seen plenty of activity on the macOS malware front, as two other strains have been discovered.

DarthMiner is one of them, distributed through the Adobe Zii piracy software for pirating multiple applications from Adobe.

In this case, the author made the mistake of using the Adobe Creative Cloud logo instead of the Adobe Zii icon, which attracted well-deserved suspicions.

Another macOS threat is OSX.BadWord, named so by Malwarebytes and discovered by John Lambert, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center engineer.

This #bitcoin interview lure macro doc does not infect any version of Office for Windows. Why? It is targeting MacOffice.

When you see libc.dylib, system, and plist, you know the macro is up to no good.
▪️https://t.co/fUdSaFFQxq (@patrickwardle)
▪️https://t.co/8NWocQoAAw pic.twitter.com/sSb2dvxmru

— John Lambert (@JohnLaTwC) December 3, 2018

It was delivered via a malicious macro in a Microsoft Word document that exploited a sandbox escape vulnerability to create a launch agent to enable persistence of a Python script that sets up a Meterpreter backdoor to access the system.

As interesting as it seems, OSX.BadWord is not an original creation but a copy-paste job from proof-of-concept code released in February by Adam Chester from MDSec. The difference is in the choice of the backdoor, since Chester mentioned Empire as a possible tool for handling macOS endpoints.

Other than this, the crook put minimum effort into making the malware as they left in the code even the identifiers referring to Chester’s blog; or maybe they just would have felt bad about taking undeserved credit.

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