macOS.Gaslight | Rust Backdoor Turns Prompt Injection on the Analyst, Not the Sandbox

A sophisticated Rust-based macOS implant named macOS.Gaslight has been discovered, featuring a novel 3.5 KB prompt-injection payload containing 38 fabricated system messages designed to disrupt LLM-assisted malware analysis. The backdoor communicates via Telegram Bot API with AES-GCM encrypted payloads over certificate-pinned TLS and includes self-redaction capabilities to hide its bot token from logs. It provides operators with an interactive shell, system information collection, and credential stealing capabilities through a bundled Python script that targets browser data, keychains, and command histories. The implant uses runtime-fetched CPython interpreters and establishes persistence through a LaunchAgent masquerading as an Apple system service. This threat is assessed with high confidence to be aligned with DPRK activity and represents a significant evolution in adversarial techniques targeting security analysts rather than sandbox environments.

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