A group of anonymous developers who have successfully infected Nvidia GPU cards with malware on both the Windows and Linux platforms claim they can do the same thing on a Mac equipped with a Nvidia GPU. The developers say they’ll release the proof soon.
The aim of the whitehat developers is to raise awareness of this new method of attack, reports IT World.
The team’s malware, called WIN_JELLY, acts as a Remote Access Tool, allowing attackers to control a machine via the Internet. They plan to release an OS X version of the malware, “MAC_JELLY,” to demonstrate the vulnerability of Macs to the same type of malware.
The growing power of GPUs means that it is becoming more common for apps to pass off processing tasks to the GPU, so the malware’s actions would look legitimate to an operating system. Another factor in the growing concern over GPU malware: Most security tools designed to search for malware don’t scan RAM used by the GPU.
The developers have inferred they plan to use the OpenCL framework for writing the Mac version of the exploit. OpenCL is an open framework for writing code on multiple platforms, and is installed by default as a part of OS X.
