Tweet
Nothing but Net: Leveraging macOS's Networking Frameworks to Heuristically Detect Malware
Patrick Wardle, Objective-See Foundation, He/Him
Demo, Tool
45
As the majority of malware contains networking capabilities, it is well understood that detecting unauthorized network access is a powerful detection heuristic. However, while the concepts of network traffic analysis and monitoring to detect malicious code are well established and widely implemented on platforms such as Windows, there remains a dearth of such capabilities on macOS.
This talk aims to remedy this situation by delving deeply into a myriad of programmatic approaches capable of enumerating network state, statistics, and traffic, directly on a macOS host. We will showcase open-source implementations of relatively overlooked low-level APIs, private frameworks, and user-mode extensions that provide insight into all networking activity. And, by leveraging these techniques, you will learn how to efficiently and generically detect both known and unknown threats targeting macOS!
Patrick Wardle is the creator of the non-profit Objective-See Foundation, author of the “The Art of Mac Malware” book series, and founder of the “Objective by the Sea” macOS Security conference.
Having worked at NASA and the NSA, as well as presenting at countless security conferences, he is intimately familiar with aliens, spies, and talking nerdy.
Patrick is passionate about all things related to macOS security and thus spends his days finding Apple 0days, analyzing macOS malware, and writing books and free open-source security tools to protect Mac users.
@patrickwardle
https://objective-see.org
REFERENCES;
J. Levin
http://newosxbook.com/src.jl?tree=li...le=netbottom.c
P. Wardle
https://objective-see.org/blog/blog_0x72.html
Will Yu / Elastic
https://www.elastic.co/blog/mac-syst...tection-part-3