Beware of fake Mac crash reports out to steal your passwords

While macOS is generally very stable, there are times when an app will crash and your Mac will offer to send a diagnostic report to Apple.

A new form of Mac malware has been discovered, which creates fake versions of this form, requesting your Mac password as part of the data collection. If you comply, it will get access to a huge range of personal data, including your password managers and cryptocurrency wallets …

Jamf says it first began tracking the malware in May, and has now seen it in the wild.

The cybersecurity company says that the disk image used to distribute the malware initially had a valid Apple Developer ID and notarization that allowed it to pass Gatekeeper checks.

Macworld says that Apple has revoked the credentials, so it should now be detected by Gatekeeper. However, caution is still advised. In addition to looking out for that disk image, you should also closely examine app crash reports and any password prompt saying that System Preferences wants to make changes.

As always, your best protection is to ensure that you only ever download apps from the Mac App Store and the websites of developers you trust.

Photo by Philipp Katzenberger on Unsplash