CreativeUpdate
also known as BitCoinMiner, CoinMiner, Miner
- Type:
- Trojan Horse
- Platform:
- Mac OS X
- Last updated:
- 02/02/18 9:51 pm
- Threat Level:
- High
Description
CreativeUpdate is a Trojan horse that mines cryptocurrency. It was discovered in 2018 on the popular Mac app distribution platform MacUpdate, masquerading as the macOS utilities Deeper and OnyX, as well as an illegitimate version of Firefox. It should be noted that the developers of Deeper, OnyX, and, of course, Firefox, have nothing to do with the malware: CreativeUpdate’s authors designed their Trojan to impersonate these apps, and then circumvented the security checks at MacUpdate in order to appear for download on the platform. The Firefox version was so thoroughly designed that it actually contained an actual, updatable version of Firefox within the malware itself, in order to fool victims into believing they were running a legitimate instance of Firefox.
Once installed, CreativeUpdate achieves persistence (the ability to survive reboots) and downloads its cryptomining payload from a remote source. It then runs unobtrusively in the background, stealing CPU resources in order to mine cryptocurrency, and communicating with a legitimate cryptomining site in order to credit the attacker with the work done by the infected system. The extra work done by the compromised machine can result in slowdowns and excess power consumption.
CreativeUpdate Threat Removal
MacScan can detect and remove CreativeUpdate Trojan Horse from your system, as well as provide protection against other security and privacy threats. A 30-day trial is available to scan your system for this threat.
