An iOS game called Simply Find It, when run through BitDefender’s virus scanner, reportedly returns a positive result for Trojan.JS.iframe.BKD. This has drawn into question the effectiveness of Apple’s App Store approval process. Is this something that Apple should have caught, and is it something App Store customers should be worried about?
Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller has taken to Twitter to poke fun at Android over malware issues. Schiller simply tweeted “Be safe out there” and linked to the Mobile Threat Report from Q4 2012 from F-Secure, which talks about security issues in mobile software.
Apple has said that it has been attacked by hackers. The same group previously targeted Facebook. Computers at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters were attacked, the company said, but no data appears to have been stolen. Speaking to Reuters, Apple said that the intrusion was not widspread:
Apple has removed a malicious app from the App Store that took the user's contacts and used them to send spam. Kaspersky Lab Expert Denis originally reported on the app, Find and Call, for Securelist, based on information from Russian carrier MegaFon.
An iOS security exploit, unveiled by security researcher Charlie Miller, allows an app to download and execute unsigned code from a remote unknown server. What’s even more astonishing, to prove the exact details of this hack, Charlie Miller developed and submitted an app containing the exploit to Apple. The app was approved and available in the App Store. (It has since been removed, and Charlie Miller has also now been removed from the iOS developer program.)
Anti-virus maker McAfee has released a report saying that iOS devices, including iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch were pretty much unaffected by the growing mobile malware attacks facing platforms like Google's Android. Jailbroken iOS devices were slightly more vulnerable, having had to deal with 4 variants of the same attack, but still far less than the 44 affecting Android (a 76% increase.)
