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macos users targeted by infostealer malware

MacOS users targeted by ‘infostealer’ malware

Apple computer users are suffering a growing number of ‘infostealer’ attacks across multiple regions and industries. These are a form of malicious software created to breach computer systems in order to steal sensitive information. The Palo Alto Networks Unit42 research group has detected a 101 percent increase in macOS infostealers in the last two quarters of 2024. The researchers identified three particularly prevalent macOS infostealers: Poseidon, Atomic, and Cthulhu. The developers of Atomic Stealer sell it as malware as a service (MaaS) in hacker forums and on Telegram. The Atomic Stealer operators usually distribute their malware via malvertising - the use of online advertising to spread malware. This typically involves injecting malicious or malware-laden advertisements into legitimate online advertising networks and webpages. It is capable of stealing notes and documents, browser data such as passwords, and cookies, cryptocurrency wallets, and instant messaging data. Atomic Stealer, also known as AMOS was first discovered in April 2023.

Musk's scrutiny of Apple

Musk deems “Apple Intelligence” offering insecure

Bereft of fresh ideas or new products, Apple’s main offering at its long-awaited annual Worldwide Developer's Conference in Cupertino, California, is a cobbled-together artificial intelligence (AI) offering. While AI may be Silicon Valley’s latest buzzword and marketing tool, “Apple Intelligence,” as Apple AI is branded, is already attracting heavy criticism – even from other tech giants. By pairing Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT with Apple’s voice-activated assistant, Siri, Apple hopes to make AI mainstream. But its critics say that all Apple has done is create a cybersecurity nightmare for corporations while sounding a death knell for the personal privacy of Apple users. "It's patently absurd that Apple isn't smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!... Apple has no clue what's actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They're selling you down the river,” says Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX founder and the owner of X Corp, formerly Twitter.

Apple enters GenAI marketplace

Apple has joined Google and Microsoft in launching its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) offering, OpenELM. Apple claims that OpenELM, “a state-of-the-art open language model,” will offer users more accurate and less misleading results than its widely criticized competitors. “OpenELM uses a layer-wise scaling strategy to efficiently allocate parameters within each layer of the transformer model, leading to enhanced accuracy,” says Apple. Apple claims that OpenELM exhibits a 2.36 percent improvement in accuracy compared to its initial predecessor OLMo, while requiring half as many pre-training tokens. So far, Apple has delayed offering modern AI capabilities on its devices, but it is expected that the next version of its operating systems will need to include some unique AI features. The launch of iOS 18 is scheduled for June 10.

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