Intego experts have spotted a new Mac OS X trojan that can infect a system with different sets of files depending on the level of the privileges it could gain. Virus installs on a system silently and without user interaction. Backdoor component of the malware connects with IP address 176.58.100.37 each 5 minutes and asks the remote server for instructions.
This new type of malware is called Crisis and it gained special interest of Intego experts due to the fact that it is able to compromise a system using just user-level privileges. In this case it deploys components that use low-level system calls and hide its activities.
If the dropper manages to gain administrative privileges it installs rootkit component that also hides the virus from AVs and other types of security solutions.
With admin privileges Crisis creates 17 files and with user privileges it creates 14 files. Almost all files are named randomly. “The file is created in a way that is intended to make reverse engineering tools more difficult to use when analyzing the file” – Intego experts say.
While studying the virus researchers learnt that a Crisis sample had been uploaded on VirusTotal a couple of times.
Intego advisory is accessible here.
