New version of Sabpab Mac Trojan emerges, spread via Word documents

A new version of the Mac OS X Sabpab Trojan horse has come to light, and rather than relying upon a Java vulnerability – it appears to be exploiting malformed Word documents instead.

If you open the boobytrapped Word document on a vulnerable Mac, a version of the OSX/Sabpab Trojan horse gets installed on your computer opening a backdoor for remote hackers to steal information or install further code.

As a decoy, a Word document is dumped onto your drive and displayed – effectively acting as a camouflage for the Trojan’s true intentions:

Mac users may be caught out by the attack, as there is no prompt to enter your username or password when the malicious software installs itself onto your Mac.

Sophos anti-virus products already proactively detected the boobytrapped Word documents as Troj/DocOSXDr-A, and protection against…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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