New macOS Malware TodoSwift Linked to North Korean Hacking Groups

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new macOS malware strain dubbed TodoSwift that they say exhibits commonalities with known malicious software used by North Korean hacking groups.

“This application shares several behaviors with malware we’ve seen that originated in North Korea (DPRK) — specifically the threat actor known as BlueNoroff — such as KANDYKORN and RustBucket,” Kandji security researcher Christopher Lopez said in an analysis.

RustBucket, which first came to light in July 2023, refers to an AppleScript-based backdoor that’s capable of fetching next-stage payloads from a command-and-control (C2) server.

Late last year, Elastic Security Labs also uncovered another macOS malware tracked as KANDYKORN that was deployed in connection with a cyber attack targeting blockchain engineers of an unnamed cryptocurrency exchange platform.

Delivered by means of a sophisticated multi-stage infection chain, KANDYKORN possesses capabilities to access and exfiltrate data from a victim’s computer. It’s also designed to terminate arbitrary processes and execute commands on the host.

A common trait that connects the two malware families lies in the use of linkpc[.]net domains for C2 purposes. Both RustBucket and KANDYKORN are assessed to be the work of a hacking crew called the Lazarus Group (and its sub-cluster known as BlueNoroff).

“The DPRK, via units like the Lazarus Group, continues to target crypto-industry businesses with the goal of stealing cryptocurrency in order to circumvent international sanctions that hinder the growth of their economy and ambitions,” Elastic said at the time.

“In this intrusion, they targeted blockchain engineers active on a public chat server with a lure designed to speak to their skills and interests, with the underlying promise of financial gain.”

The latest findings from the Apple device management and security platform show that TodoSwift is distributed in the form of a TodoTasks, which consists of a dropper component.

This module is a GUI application written in SwiftUI that’s engineered to display a weaponized PDF document to the victim, while covertly downloading and executing a second-stage binary, a technique employed in RustBucket as well.

The lure PDF is a harmless Bitcoin-related document hosted on Google Drive, whereas the malicious payload is retrieved from an actor-controlled domain (“buy2x[.]com”). Further investigation into the exact specifics of the binary remains ongoing.

“The use of a Google Drive URL and passing the C2 URL as a launch argument to the stage 2 binary is consistent with previous DPRK malware affecting macOS systems,” Lopez said.

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