Malwarebytes warns of denial-of-service attacks on Macs, but blocked by latest Sierra update

Malwarebytes has warned of a new malware attack targeted specifically at Macs. The denial-of-service attack hijacks Safari and Apple’s Mail app to keep drafting emails until the Mac eventually runs out of RAM and crashes.

The [malware] will keep drafting emails (but does not actually send them) incrementally and covering the previous open windows. This is not a spam attempt but rather a typical denial-of-service attack …

The malware appears similar to existing Windows malware, which is intended to encourage owners to either call a fake tech support number or to accept a call from one.

Malwarebytes tells us that emails containing the link are being sent from at least two email accounts, and any email received from these should obviously be deleted unread. The emails are dean.jones9875@gmail.com and amannn.2917@gmail.com.

The malware is currently hosted on a number of different sites, including safari-get[.]com, safari-get[.]net, safari-serverhost[.]com and safari-serverhost[.]net. While you should always avoid clicking on any unknown link, these are particular ones to watch for.

Mac users running macOS 10.12.2 (or later betas) are not affected, as Safari detects the attempt to open the Mail app and blocks the unwanted event.