Cuckoo Stealer is a macOS malware with characteristics of spyware and an infostealer that has been in use since at least 2024. Cuckoo Stealer is a universal Mach-O binary that can run on Intel or ARM-based Macs and has been spread through trojanized versions of various potentially unwanted programs or PUP's such as converters, cleaners, and uninstallers.[1][2]
26
TechniquesTop 11%
10
TacticsTop 6%
0
Threat groupsNone recorded
0
CampaignsNone recorded
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
Cuckoo Stealer has captured passwords by prompting victims with a “macOS needs to access System Settings” GUI window.11
Credential Access · Collection5 detection rules
Standing S1153
Reach is how much of ATT&CK this malware touches. Coverage is how well defended each thing it does is, as a median per technique rather than a total — a total would just restate the reach. Each figure is ranked against all 825 ATT&CK software entries only where that population actually spreads. Where most of the population shares one value, a percentile would rank the tie instead of the entity, so the raw value is shown and no rank is claimed.
Reach
Techniques26Top 11%
89th percentile · 89% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics10Top 6%
94th percentile · 94% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many tactics spanned or fewer.
Threat groups061% tie · 22 values
61% of the population shares a single value across only 22 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Campaigns085% tie · 8 values
85% of the population shares a single value across only 8 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Coverage
Rules / technique5medBottom 7%
7th percentile · 93% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique4med28th pct
28th percentile · 72% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more atomic tests per technique.
Data comps / technique4med54% tie · 11 values
54% of the population shares a single value across only 11 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Mitigations / technique0.5medBottom 23%
23rd percentile · 77% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more mitigations per technique.
5 of 8 axes carry an honest rank on this page. Coverage medians are taken across this malware’s 26 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
Detects suspicious activity associated with Atomic MacOS Stealer (Amos) campaigns, including execution of FileGrabber and curl-based POST requests used for data exfiltration. (...)
The following analytic detects the execution of tools commonly exploited by cybercriminals, such as those used for unauthorized access, network scanning, privilege escalation, password dumping or data exfiltration. (...)
Detects the Linux-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency by Axios NPM package, including payload download via curl and detached execution using nohup and python3. (...)
Detects the macOS-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency in Axios NPM Package, including AppleScript execution via osascript, payload download, permission modification, execution, and cleanup.
The following analytic detects the use of CertUtil.exe with the 'decode' argument, which may indicate an attempt to decode a previously encoded file, potentially containing malicious payloads. (...)
Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. (...)
The following analytic identifies the execution of the "whoami" command with the "/group" flag, where the results are passed to the "find" command in order to look for a the string "12288". (...)
This analytic detects potential reconnaissance activities on Cisco ASA devices by identifying execution of multiple information-gathering "show" commands within a short timeframe. (...)
This analytic detects the usage of the Utility osascript on a macOS device initiated a network connection lasting longer than 10 minutes (600 seconds). (...)
The following analytic detects the use of known suspicious SSL certificates in any observed event where the SSL_CertFingerprint field is present. (...)
The following analytic detects connections with a high Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) threat confidence score, indicating potentially malicious behavior within encrypted traffic. (...)
The following analytic detects potentially suspicious large volumes of data sent by the connection initiator on flows from internal to external networks. (...)
The following analytic identifies specific GET or HEAD requests to web servers that indicate reconnaissance attempts to find vulnerable JBoss servers. (...)