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Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

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Re: Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

#2
Are video captures actually possible? I could imagine video capture as part of a RAT, but what scares me is the idea of video capture that doesn't turn on the camera activity light. Are there any examples of that?

Re: Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

#4
post #2

Are video captures actually possible? I could imagine video capture as part of a RAT, but what scares me is the idea of video capture that doesn't turn on the camera activity light. Are there any examples of that?

I don't know that it's possible on recent Apple hardware. I remember reading somewhere that the green LED is triggered by the camera power line, or something along those lines.

Re: Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

#5

Really interesting to see a cross-platform malware with audio and video support; a lot of non-malware has difficulty with that.

A lot of cross platform software that attempts audio/video (e.g. Skype etc) would be considered malware by some. Usually people who've had to use it at least once.

Re: Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

#6
post #5

Really interesting to see a cross-platform malware with audio and video support; a lot of non-malware has difficulty with that.

A lot of cross platform software that attempts audio/video (e.g. Skype etc) would be considered malware by some. Usually people who've had to use it at least once.

Serious question: Is this snark, or does the software in question do sketchy things with privilege escalation that might be leveraged into attacks?

I agree that much software has terrible UI, but it's good to distinguish surface stuff from objectively terrible security decisions.

Re: Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

#7
post #5

Really interesting to see a cross-platform malware with audio and video support; a lot of non-malware has difficulty with that.

A lot of cross platform software that attempts audio/video (e.g. Skype etc) would be considered malware by some. Usually people who've had to use it at least once.

Anything can considered malware by some. The question of course is if it's a notable assessment or is it just these "some" having a random opinion.

Re: Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

#8
post #2

Are video captures actually possible? I could imagine video capture as part of a RAT, but what scares me is the idea of video capture that doesn't turn on the camera activity light. Are there any examples of that?

It was definitely possible a couple years back - https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569

We describe how to disable the LED on a class of Apple internal iSight webcams used in some versions of MacBook laptops and iMac desktops. This enables video to be captured without any visual indication to the user and can be accomplished entirely in user space by an unprivileged (non- root) application.

Re: Sophisticated OS X Backdoor Discovered

#9
post #4
post #2

Are video captures actually possible? I could imagine video capture as part of a RAT, but what scares me is the idea of video capture that doesn't turn on the camera activity light. Are there any examples of that?

I don't know that it's possible on recent Apple hardware. I remember reading somewhere that the green LED is triggered by the camera power line, or something along those lines.

That's how it should be however that's not how it is for all web cameras. I don't know specifics about Apple.
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