Thousands of Macs infected with new Silver Sparrow malware

A piece of malware found on almost 30,000 Macs worldwide was discovered by security researchers from Red Canary and analyzed together with researchers from Malwarebytes and VMWare Carbon Black.

Named Silver Sparrow details how the malware was distributed and infected users are still scarce. It's unclear if it was hidden inside malicious ads, pirated apps, or fake Flash updaters —the classic distribution vector for most Mac malware strains. Furthermore, this malware's purpose is also unclear, and researchers don't know what its final goal is.

"Though we haven’t observed Silver Sparrow delivering additional malicious payloads yet, its forward-looking M1 chip compatibility, global reach, relatively high infection rate, and operational maturity suggest Silver Sparrow is a reasonably serious threat, uniquely positioned to deliver a potentially impactful payload at a moment’s notice," Red Canary researchers wrote in a blog post published on Friday.