Apple's App Store targeted by hackers
Apple's App Store has fallen victim to a major cyberattack for the first time. The attack originated in China and has also affected several widely used apps. The tech giant acknowledged the incident on Sunday.
Cybersecurity companies had previously declared that they had found malware in numerous apps. Chinese state television CCTV spoke of over 350 affected applications on Sunday. Popular Chinese apps such as those of Uber competitor Didi Kuaidi and the messaging app WeChat were also infected, potentially affecting several hundred million users. According to the IT security firm Palo Alto Networks, which helped uncover the attack, other infected apps included games and applications for banking, stock trading, online networks, maps and communication. Apple has since removed the applications from the App Store, the company said on Monday night. There are no indications of data theft or other damage. Apple did not disclose how users can recognize a possible infection of their device or the number of affected apps.
Manipulated developer tool
The problem was triggered by the fact that some app developers had used a prepared version of the Apple software XCode to write their applications, explained Palo Alto Networks. According to the IT security firm's findings, the apps created with this software were able to steal passwords, among other things. Access to the official developer software on the Apple website from China is often difficult due to Internet censorship. The developers therefore used a supposedly original version of XCode that had been stored in a cloud storage facility belonging to the internet company Baidu. The manipulated XCode program has since been removed from Baidu.
It remains unclear how the infected apps were able to pass Apple's controls. This is the first known successful attack on the App Store. By default, iPhones and iPads can only download controlled applications from the in-house App Store. This is intended to ensure that users who remain in the Apple system can rely on the security of the apps. So far, the system has seemed to work well. (SDA)
