The Silver Sparrow malware is out in the wild.
And no one quite seems to know what it does.
Over the weekend, news surfaced of a mysterious new pieced of malware called “Silver Sparrow” that had infected 30,000 computers to date. There’s also a version of it built for the new M1-based Macs.
To date, security researchers seem unable to figure out its purpose.
Per Ars Technica:
Once an hour, infected Macs check a control server to see if there are any new commands the malware should run or binaries to execute. So far, however, researchers have yet to observe delivery of any payload on any of the infected 30,000 machines, leaving the malware’s ultimate goal unknown. The lack of a final payload suggests that the malware may spring into action once an unknown condition is met.
Also curious, the malware comes with a mechanism to completely remove itself, a capability that’s typically reserved for high-stealth operations. So far, though, there are no signs the self-destruct feature has been used, raising the question of why the mechanism exists.
As always, please be careful out there, and we’ll have additional details as they become available.
Via The Mac Observer and Ars Technica