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Category — Apple iMessage
Darcula Phishing Network Leveraging RCS and iMessage to Evade Detection

Darcula Phishing Network Leveraging RCS and iMessage to Evade Detection

Mar 28, 2024 Cybercrime / Email Security
A sophisticated phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform called  Darcula  has set its sights on organizations in over 100 countries by leveraging a massive network of more than 20,000 counterfeit domains to help cyber criminals launch attacks at scale. "Using iMessage and RCS rather than SMS to send text messages has the side effect of bypassing SMS firewalls, which is being used to great effect to target USPS along with postal services and other established organizations in 100+ countries," Netcraft  said . Darcula has been employed in several high-profile phishing attacks over the last year, wherein the smishing messages are sent to both Android and iOS users in the U.K., in addition to those that leverage package delivery lures by impersonating legitimate services like USPS. A Chinese-language PhaaS, Darcula is  advertised on Telegram  and offers support for  about 200 templates  impersonating legitimate brands that customers can avail for a monthly fee to set up phishin
Apple Threatens to Pull iMessage and FaceTime from U.K. Amid Surveillance Demands

Apple Threatens to Pull iMessage and FaceTime from U.K. Amid Surveillance Demands

Jul 22, 2023 Encryption / Privacy
Apple has warned that it would rather stop offering iMessage and FaceTime services in the U.K. than bowing down to government pressure in response to new proposals that seek to expand digital surveillance powers available to state intelligence agencies. The development, first  reported  by BBC News, makes the iPhone maker the latest to join the chorus of voices protesting against forthcoming legislative changes to the  Investigatory Powers Act  ( IPA ) 2016 in a manner that would effectively render encryption protections ineffective. Specifically, the  Online Safety Bill  requires companies to install technology to scan for child sex exploitation and abuse (CSEA) material and terrorism content in encrypted messaging apps and other services. It also mandates that messaging services clear security features with the Home Office before releasing them and take immediate action to disable them if required without informing the public. While the fact does not explicitly call out for the r
Sailing the Seven Seas Securely from Port to Port – OT Access Security for Ships and Cranes

Sailing the Seven Seas Securely from Port to Port – OT Access Security for Ships and Cranes

Oct 28, 2024Operational Technology / Cybersecurity
Operational Technology (OT) security has affected marine vessel and port operators, since both ships and industrial cranes are being digitalized and automated at a rapid pace, ushering in new types of security challenges. Ships come to shore every six months on average. Container cranes are mostly automated. Diagnostics, maintenance, upgrade and adjustments to these critical systems are done remotely, often by third-party vendor technicians. This highlights the importance of proper secure remote access management for industrial control systems (ICS).  Learn more in our Buyer's Guide for Secure Remote Access Lifecycle Management .  We at SSH Communications Security (SSH) have been pioneering security solutions that bridge the gap between IT and OT in privileged access management . Let's investigate how we helped two customers solve their critical access control needs with us. Secure Remote Access Around the Globe to 1000s of Ships  In the maritime industry, ensuring secure and e
Google Researchers Disclose PoCs for 4 Remotely Exploitable iOS Flaws

Google Researchers Disclose PoCs for 4 Remotely Exploitable iOS Flaws

Jul 30, 2019
Google's cybersecurity researchers have finally disclosed details and proof-of-concept exploits for 4 out of 5 security vulnerabilities that could allow remote attackers to target Apple iOS devices just by sending a maliciously-crafted message over iMessage. All the vulnerabilities, which required no user interaction, were responsibly reported to Apple by Samuel Groß and Natalie Silvanovich of Google Project Zero, which the company patched just last week with the release of the latest iOS 12.4 update . Four of these vulnerabilities are "interactionless" use-after-free and memory corruption issues that could let remote attackers achieve arbitrary code execution on affected iOS devices. However, researchers have yet released details and exploits for three of these four critical RCE vulnerabilities and kept one (CVE-2019-8641) private because the latest patch update did not completely address this issue. The fifth vulnerability (CVE-2019-8646), an out-of-bounds re
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AWS EKS Security Best Practices [Cheat Sheet]

websiteWiz.ioCloud Security / Kubernetes
Unlock this one-stop resource for mastering EKS security best practices and safeguarding your cloud-native applications.
A Single-Character Message Can Crash Any Apple iPhone, iPad Or Mac

A Single-Character Message Can Crash Any Apple iPhone, iPad Or Mac

Feb 16, 2018
Only a single character can crash your iPhone and block access to the Messaging app in iOS as well as popular apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Outlook for iOS, and Gmail. First spotted by Italian Blog Mobile World, a potentially new severe bug affects not only iPhones but also a wide range of Apple devices, including iPads, Macs and even Watch OS devices running the latest versions of their operating software. Like previous 'text bomb' bug, the new flaw can easily be exploited by anyone, requiring users to send only a single character from Telugu—a native Indian language spoken by about 70 million people in the country. Once the recipient receives a simple message containing the symbol or typed that symbol into the text editor, the character immediately instigates crashes on iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches and Apple TVs running Apple's iOS Springboard. Apps that receive the text bomb tries to load the character, but fails and refuses to function prope
You Can Crash Anyone's iPhone Or iPad With A Simple Emoji Text Message

You Can Crash Anyone's iPhone Or iPad With A Simple Emoji Text Message

Jan 19, 2017
A newly discovered bug in Apple's iOS mobile operating system is being exploited in a prank that lets anyone crash your iPhone or iPad by just sending an emoji-filled iMessage, according to several reports. YouTube star EverythingApplePro published a video highlighting a sequence of characters that temporarily freeze and restart an iPhone, which people can send to their iPhone buddies to trouble them. You can watch the video demonstration below. Here's the first troublesome text: A white Flag emoji, the digit "0" and a Rainbow emoji. This simple numeric character, flag, and rainbow emojis confuse iOS 10 devices when it tries to combine them into a rainbow flag. As soon as this text is received, the iPhone's software attempts to combine the emojis but fails, and the messaging app crashes and eventually reboots in a few minutes. The recipients do not even have to open or read the message. Video Demonstration Another iPhone-crashing method involves
Apple Tracks Who You're Chatting Using iMessage — and Shares that Data with Police

Apple Tracks Who You're Chatting Using iMessage — and Shares that Data with Police

Sep 28, 2016
Doing conversations with your friend on iMessage and thinking that they are safe and out of reach from anyone else other than you and your friend? No, it's not. End-to-end encryption doesn't mean that your iMessages are secure enough to hide your trace because Apple not only stores a lot of information about your iMessages that could reveal your contacts and location, but even share that information with law enforcement via court orders. According to a new document obtained by The Intercept , Apple records a log of which phone numbers you typed into their iPhone for a message conversation, along with the date and time when you entered those numbers as well as your IP address, which could be used to identify your location. Actually, every time a user type a phone number into their iPhone for a message conversation, iMessage contacts Apple servers to find out whether to route a given message over the iMessage system. "Apple records each query in which your phone c
Iran orders all Messaging Apps to store its citizens' data within Country

Iran orders all Messaging Apps to store its citizens' data within Country

May 31, 2016
Last year, Iran blocked Telegram and many other social networks after their founders refused to help Iranian authorities to spy on their citizens. Now it looks like Iranian government wants tighter controls on all foreign messaging and social media apps operating in the country that will give the authorities a wider ability to monitor and censor its people. All foreign messaging and social media apps operating in Iran have one year to move 'data and activity' associated with Iranian citizens onto servers in Iran, Reuters reported . In order to comply with the new regulations, the companies would need to set up data centers in Iran within one year, but apps may lose a larger number of users by moving data onto Iranian servers. However, transferring data to Iran servers might not be enough, as some of the most popular messaging services like WhatsApp , Apple iMessage , and Telegram are offering end-to-end encrypted communication i.e. nobody in between, not even Whats
Apple hires developer of World's Most Secure Messaging App

Apple hires developer of World's Most Secure Messaging App

Feb 26, 2016
Apple is serious this time to enhance its iPhone security that even it can not hack. To achieve this the company has hired one of the key developers of Signal — World's most secure, open source and encrypted messaging app. Frederic Jacobs, who worked to develop Signal, announced today that he is joining Apple this summer to work as an intern in its CoreOS security team. "I'm delighted to announce that I accepted an offer to be working with the CoreOS security team at Apple this summer," Jacobs tweeted Thursday. Signal app is widely popular among the high-profile privacy advocates, security researchers, journalists and whistleblowers for its clean and open source code, and even the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden uses it every day. Signal messages are end-to-end encrypted, which means only the sender and the intended recipient can read the messages. Although Apple's iMessage is also end-to-end encrypted, it is not open source. Apple to bu
Apple Could Offer iMessage App for Android

Apple Could Offer iMessage App for Android

Feb 09, 2016
Although Apple has its own operating system for both desktop (Mac OS X) and iPhone (iOS), the company has always tried to port its in-house applications to other OS platforms. Apple debuted on its rival mobile OS platform last year with the launch of Apple Music on Android. However, iTunes and Safari has already been made available for both Windows as well as Mac. Now, the company will soon move more of its mobile applications to Android if comments made by Chief Executive Tim Cook at the recent company-wide event for Apple employees are to be believed. iMessage App for Android Platform Cook reportedly told his staff that sooner Apple may bring other apps and exclusive services to the Android Systems, and added that bringing Apple Music to Android in November was "a way of testing the waters for growing its services division through other platforms," reports 9to5Mac. So, you could see iMessage , the company's encrypted messaging application, ex
Apple Can Still Read Your End-to-End Encrypted iMessages

Apple Can Still Read Your End-to-End Encrypted iMessages

Jan 25, 2016
If you are backing up your data using iCloud Backup , then you need you watch your steps NOW! In government fight against encryption, Apple has positioned itself as a staunch defender of its user privacy by refusing the federal officials to provide encryption backdoors into its products. When it comes to Apple's iMessage service, the company claims that it can't read messages sent between its devices because they use end-to-end encryption, which apparently means that only you and the intended recipient can read it. Moreover, in case, if the federal authorities ask Apple to hand over messages related to any of its users, there is nothing with Apple to offer them. "If the government laid a subpoena to get iMessages, we can't provide it," Apple CEO Tim Cook told Charlie Rose back in 2014. "It is encrypted, and we do not have a key." But Wait! There are still hundreds of Millions of Apple users whose data are stored on Apple'
UK to ban WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat Under New Laws

UK to ban WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat Under New Laws

Jul 11, 2015
If you rely on messaging apps to remain in contact with your family members and friends, then you may have to switch back to old-fashioned text messaging service in matter of weeks due to a new law currently going through Parliament. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to Ban in UK The popular messaging applications, including WhatsApp, Snapchat, iMessage and Facebook Messenger, could all potentially be banned in the UK under the controversial ' Snoopers Charter '. The Investigatory Powers Bill -- the so-called Snoopers Charter -- mentioned in the 2015 Queen's Speech , would allow UK government to eradicate instant messaging apps that refuse to switch off end-to-end encryption from their services. Earlier this year in light of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, Prime Minister David Cameron hinted at the crackdown when he claimed that he would ban encrypted messaging apps like Snapchat, WhatsApp and Messenger unless they didn't comply with new surve
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