The latest processor for Apple’s Macs — the M1 chip — has already become a target for malware authors, who have created Mac-specific binaries targeting the ARM64 architecture used by the processors, researchers said this week.
For example, one MacOS malware downloader, dubbed Silver Sparrow, has a number of interesting properties, including the use of the MacOS installer’s JavaScript API to create persistence, and communication with a command-and-control (C2) infrastructure built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers and Akamai’s content distribution network (CDN), security firm Red Canary stated in an analysis of the new malware. In addition, the malware also natively runs on the latest Macs running the M1 ARM64 architecture.
While creating a native binary for the ARM64 architecture is an interesting step on the part of attackers, the development…