WikiLeaks has just published a new set of classified documents linked to another CIA project, dubbed ‘Imperial,’ which reveals details of at least three CIA-developed hacking tools and implants designed to target computers running Apple Mac OS X and different flavours of Linux operating systems.
If you are a regular reader of THN, you must be aware that this latest revelation by the whistleblower organisation is the part of an ongoing CIA-Vault 7 leaks, marking it as the 18th batch in the series.
If you are unaware of the Vault 7 leaks, you can head on to the second of this article for having a brief look on all the leaks at once.
Achilles — Tool to Backdoor Mac OS X Disk Images
Dubbed Achilles, the hacking tool allows CIA operators to combine malicious Trojan applications with a legitimate Mac OS app into a disk image installer (.DMG) file.
The binding tool, the shell script is written in Bash, gives the CIA operators “one or more desired operator specified executables” for a one-time execution.
As soon as an unsuspecting user downloads an infected disk image on his/her Apple computer, opens and installs the software, the malicious executables would also run in the background.
Afterwards, all the traces of the Achilles tool would be “removed securely” from the downloaded application so that the file would “exactly resemble” the original legitimate app, un-trojaned application, making it hard for the investigators and antivirus software to detect the initial infection vector.
Achilles v1.0, developed in 2011, was only tested on Mac OS X 10.6, which is Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system that the company launched in 2009.
SeaPea — Stealthy Rootkit For Mac OS X Systems
The second hacking tool, called SeaPea, is a Mac OS X Rootkit that gives CIA operators stealth and tool launching capabilities by hiding important files, processes and socket connections from the users, allowing them to access Macs without victims knowledge.
Source: The Hacker News