Minneapolis-based cybersecurity firm Jamf Threat Labs found a well-hidden ransomware in pirated copies of Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Jamf warns that the speed of Apple’s chip will make Macs increasingly popular targets for malware attacks.
In his report, jamf said:
“During routine monitoring of our threat detections in the wild, we found an alert indicating the use of XMRig, a command-line cryptomining tool. While XMRig is commonly used for legitimate purposes, its open source responsive design has also made it a popular choice for malicious actors.”
Apple’s software cybersecurity firm has discovered that unauthorized copies of Apple’s video editing software are a Trojan horse. Unbeknownst to the petty cyber crooks who hacked into Apple software, he was running XMRig to mine crypto using his computer.
Report Warns Mac Cryptomalware Will Be More Prevalent
The Jamf report continues:
“This particular instance was of interest to us as it ran under the guise of Apple-developed video editing software Final Cut Pro. Further investigation revealed that this malicious version of Final Cut Pro contained an unauthorized Apple modification that was running XMRig in the background”.
The security firm warns that “cryptojacking” malware will become an increasingly prevalent threat to Mac users with the power of Apple’s ARM processors today.
Adware has traditionally been the most widespread type of macOS malware, but cryptojacking, a stealthy, large-scale cryptomining scheme, is becoming more prevalent. Given that crypto mining requires a significant amount of processing power, ongoing advances in Apple’s ARM processors are likely to make macOS devices even more attractive targets for cryptojacking.”
Apple’s 16-core Neural Engine M1 processor is capable of performing 11 trillion operations per second. That represents a 15x increase in machine learning performance over previous M1s.
What makes Apple chips so fast?
It’s a game of volume
Experts in professional tools Explain:
“The M1 is not just a processor chip, it is what is called a System-on-a-Chip or SoC for short. What that means is that unlike today’s computers, where the components that make up a computer are individual parts mounted on a motherboard, an SoC, like the Apple M1, brings together an 8-core CPU, an 8-core GPU ( 7-core on some MacBook Air models), unified memory, SSD controller, image signal processor, Secure Enclave, on a single chip.”
Like the most powerful mass-produced GPUs on the market today, Apple Silicon can actually make a small profit mining cryptocurrency.
In November 2021, 9to5Mac ran some numbers about using a MacBook Pro to mine cryptocurrency when you’re not using it and concluded that after electricity costs, you could earn around 42 cents a day.
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