Pirated copies of Final Cut Pro infect Macs with cryptojacking malware

1 year ago AndyC

Hopefully
everyone
reading
this
knows
that
Macs
can
be
infected
by
malware,
just
like
PCs.

And
hopefully
any
Mac
user
reading
this
blog
knows
that
they
should
be
running
anti-virus
software
on
their
Macs,
just
like
they
would
(hopefully)
on
a
Windows
PC.

You’re
barmy
if
you
don’t.

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Sure,
there’s
much
more
malware
for
Windows
(by
a
large
order
of
magnitude)
than
there
is
on
macOS,
but
that
doesn’t
mean
that
Macs
are
somehow
magically
immune
from
threats.

It’s
simply
the
case
that
if
you’re
running
a
Mac,
there
are
a
lot
less
arrows
being
flung
in
your
direction.

But
if
you
do
foolhardy
things
on
your
Mac,
you
can
certainly
come
a
cropper.

Take,
for
instance,
if
you
decide
that
you
don’t
fancy
paying
the
$300
or
so
that
Apple
charges
for
the
Mac
edition
of
Final
Cut
Pro.

Maybe
you
decide
that
because
you
can’t
afford
to
pay
that
for
video-editing
software
that
you’ll
venture
onto
the
internet
instead,
and
see
if
you
can
download
a
pirated
version
of
Final
Cut
Pro
from
a
torrent
instead.

Well,
don’t
you
like
living
dangerously?

As
security
researchers
at
Jamf
have

described,
torrents
on
The
Pirate
Bay
which
claim
to
contain
Final
Cut
Pro
are
instead
being
used
to
distribute
cryptojacking
malware
to
Macs.

If
you
do
download
the
pirated
version
of
“Final
Cut
Pro”
from
a
torrent,
at
installation
you’ll
be
greeted
with
a
message
which
suggests
that
the
software
has
become
corrupted.

However,
behind
the
scenes,
your
Mac
is
already
covertly
mining
cryptocurrency
on
behalf
of
cybercriminals
–
gobbling
up
your
CPU
cycles
and
giving
your
computer’s
fan
a
good
workout.

The
lesson?
Obviously
you
should
always
run
up-to-date
anti-virus
software,
but
maybe
you
would
also
be
wise
to
only
install
software
from
legitimate
sources
–
which
doesn’t
mean
it’s
okay
to
install
pirated
software.

According
to
Jamf,
the
person
responsible
for
the
poisoned
Final
Cut
Pro
torrents
has
uploaded
numerous
other
malicious
payloads
that
mine
cryptocurrency
since
2019.

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this
article
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About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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