MALWARE FAMILY

Shlayer

Internal ID: osx.shlayer

aliases

Last seen:Mar 17, 2026

Intelligence Profile

According to PCrisk, Shlayer is a trojan-type virus designed to proliferate various adware and other unwanted applications, and promote fake search engines. It is typically disguised as a Adobe Flash Player installer and various software cracking tools.

In most cases, users encounter this virus when visiting dubious Torrent websites that are full of intrusive advertisements and deceptive downloads.

Threat Analysis

Shlayer is a malware family tracked by threat intelligence researchers and catalogued in the Malpedia dataset. It represents a distinct malicious software lineage with identifiable code characteristics, behaviors, and victimology.

External References

→https://cedowens.medium.com/macos-gatekeeper-bypass-2021-edition-5256a2955508

→https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x64.html

→https://resource.redcanary.com/rs/003-YRU-314/images/2021-Threat-Detection-Report.pdf

→https://securelist.com/shlayer-for-macos/95724/

→https://threatpost.com/shlayer-mac-youtube-wikipedia/152146/

→https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-345a

→https://www.cisecurity.org/insights/blog/top-10-malware-march-2022

→https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/how-crowdstrike-analyzes-macos-malware-to-optimize-automated-detection-capabilities

→https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/shlayer-malvertising-campaigns-still-using-flash-update-disguise/

→https://www.jamf.com/blog/shlayer-malware-abusing-gatekeeper-bypass-on-macos/

Quick Facts

TypeMalware Family

Aliases1

Also Known As

osx.shlayer

Research Links

MITRE ATT&CK VirusTotal Google (news) Twitter/X search

Data sourced from Malpedia, Ransomware.live, RansomLook, and CTIWATCH OSINT collection. Actor attribution is based on available intelligence and may be incomplete.

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