DLL Hijacking on OS X

Architecture and Background

Remember DLL hijacking on Windows? Well, turns out that OS X is fundamentally vulnerable to a similar attack (independent of the user's environment).

Vulnerability Analysis

By abusing various 'features' and undocumented aspects of OS X's dynamic loader, this talk will reveal how attackers need only to plant specially-crafted dynamic libraries to have their malicious code automatically loaded into vulnerable applications. Through this attack, adversaries can perform a wide range of malicious actions, including stealthy persistence, process injection, security software circumvention, and even 'remote' infection.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

So come watch as applications fall, Gatekeeper crumbles (allowing downloaded unsigned code to execute), and 'hijacker malware' arises - capable of bypassing all top security and anti-virus products! And since "sharing is caring" leave with code and tools that can automatically uncover vulnerable binaries, generate compatible hijacker libraries, or detect if you've been hijacked.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Patrick Wardle is the Director of Research at Synack, where he leads cyber R&D efforts. Having worked at NASA, the NSA, and Vulnerability Research Labs (VRL), he is intimately familiar with aliens, spies, and talking nerdy. Currently, Patrick’s focus is on automated vulnerability discovery, and the emerging threats of OS X and mobile malware. In his personal time, Patrick collects OS X malware and writes OS X security tools. Both can be found on his website Objective-See.com