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TheMask / Careto OSX component signature

yara LOW Yara-Rules
community
This rule was pulled from an open-source repository and enriched with AI. Validate in a test environment before deploying to production.
View original rule at Yara-Rules →
Retrieved: 2026-05-20T11:00:00Z · Confidence: medium

Hunt Hypothesis

TheMask/Careto OSX component signature detects potential adversary activity involving the use of a known malicious macOS component associated with advanced persistent threat groups. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to identify and mitigate early-stage compromises that may evade traditional detection methods.

YARA Rule

rule Careto_OSX_SBD 
{

    meta:
        author = "AlienVault (Alberto Ortega)"
        description = "TheMask / Careto OSX component signature"
        reference = "www.securelist.com/en/downloads/vlpdfs/unveilingthemask_v1.0.pdf"
        date = "2014/02/11"

    strings:
        /* XORed "/dev/null strdup() setuid(geteuid())" */
        $1 = {FF 16 64 0A 7E 1A 63 4D 21 4D 3E 1E 60 0F 7C 1A 65 0F 74 0B 3E 1C 7F 12}

    condition:
        all of them
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

This rule contains 1 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

False Positive Guidance

Original source: https://github.com/Yara-Rules/rules/blob/main/malware/APT_Careto.yar