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MANILA, Philippines – Security researchers have uncovered a new malware family targeting iOS and Mac OS systems.
The security company, Palo Alto Networks, called the malware family WireLurker. It claimed WireLurker is the “biggest in scale” the company had seen, according to a new report Wednesday, November 5.
The security company noted that WireLurker was used to trojanize (disguise itself and infect) 467 OS X applications on the Maiyadi App Store, a third-party Mac appstore in China. The 467 infected applications were then downloaded over 356,104 times, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of users.
The researchers indicated that WireLurker monitors iOS devices that connect via USB to an infected OS X computer, downloading third-party applications or malicious applications onto the device, regardless of whether the device is jailbroken (had its iOS limitations removed) or not.
They added, “Researchers have demonstrated similar methods to attack non-jailbroken devices before; however, this malware combines a number of techniques to successfully realize a new brand of threat to all iOS devices.”
Speaking with the New York Times, Ryan Olson, the director of threat intelligence at Palo Alto Networks, noted that an “eventual attack” might occur.
“Even though this is the first time this is happening, it demonstrates to a lot of attackers that this is a method that can be used to crack through the hard shell that Apple has built around its iOS devices,” Olson noted.
Palo Alto Networks told Apple about its findings on WireLurker, though an Apple spokesman did not comment on their reports. – Rappler.com
Macbook and iPhone image from Shutterstock
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