iPhone hacking | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Hard time for mobile phone users! Just recently, two severe vulnerabilities in Qualcomm Snapdragon chip and Stagefright were spotted on the Android platform, affecting more than a Billion and Millions of devices respectively. And now: Hackers have discovered a new way to install malicious apps onto your iPhone without your interaction. Researchers at Palo Alto Networks have uncovered a new strain of malware that can infect Non-Jailbroken (factory-configured) iPhones and iPads without the owner's knowledge or interaction, leaving hundreds of millions of Apple iOS devices at risk. Dubbed AceDeceiver , the iPhone malware installs itself on iOS devices without enterprise certificates and exploits designing flaws in Apple's digital rights management (DRM) protection mechanism called FairPlay. What's more concerning about this malware: Unlike most iOS malware, AceDeceiver works on factory-configured (non-jailbroken) iOS devices as well. FairPlay ...

Unlike desktops, your mobile devices carry all sorts of information from your personal emails to your sensitive financial details. And due to this, the hackers have shifted their interest to the mobile platform. Every week new exploits are discovered for iOS and Android platform, most of the times separately, but the recently discovered exploit targets both Android as well as iOS devices. A team of security researchers from Tel Aviv University , Technion and The University of Adelaide has devised an attack to steal cryptographic keys used to protect Bitcoin wallets, Apple Pay accounts, and other highly sensitive services from Android and iOS devices. The team is the same group of researchers who had experimented a number of different hacks to extract data from computers. Last month, the team demonstrated how to steal sensitive data from a target air-gapped computer located in another room. Past years, the team also demonstrated how to extract secret decryption key...

The United States is not the only one where Apple is battling with the federal authorities over iPhone encryption. Apple could face $1 Million in Fine each time the company refused to unlock an iPhone in France. Despite its victory in a New York court yesterday, Apple may not be so successful elsewhere in fighting against federal authorities over iPhone encryption battle. Yann Galut, a member of France's Socialist Party, has submitted an amendment to a bill aimed at strengthening the French government's ability to fight against terrorism — by arguing that… Apple should pay a Million Euro ( $1.08 Million ) fine for every iPhone Apple refuses to unlock when asked to by law enforcement, The Local reported . The same €1 Million penalty could apply to Google as well under similar conditions, forcing the tech companies to help its investigators extract data from a suspect's smartphone in terrorism cases. The French police seized eight smartphones last year in terror investiga...

Apple - 1; The FBI - 0 Apple Won a major court victory against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an ongoing legal battle similar to San Bernardino. In a New York case, a federal magistrate judge has ruled in favor of Apple, rejecting the U.S. government's request to force Apple to help the FBI extract data from a locked iPhone. This ruling from United States Magistrate Judge James Orenstein for the Eastern District of New York is a significant boost to Apple's pro-privacy stance to resist the agency's similar efforts over unlocking iPhone 5C of an alleged San Bernardino terrorist. The ruling [ PDF ] was issued on Monday as part of the criminal case against Jun Feng , who was pleaded guilty in October last year to drug charges. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized Feng's iPhone 5 last year, but even after consulting the FBI, it was unable to access the iPhone. According to both the DEA and FBI, it's impossible for them to ov...

Amid an ongoing dispute with the United States government over a court order to unlock iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino shooters Syed Farook… ...Apple started working on implementing stronger security measures "even it can't hack" to achieve un-hackability in its future iPhones. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is deliberately forcing Apple to create a special, backdoored version of iOS that could let them brute force the passcode on Farook's iPhone without erasing data. However, the FBI approached the company to unlock the shooter's iPhone 5C in various ways like: Create a backdoor to shooter's iPhone. Disable the Auto-destruct feature after numerous tries. Increase the brute force time to try out all combinations. Minimize the time of waiting for a window after each try. ..and much more Apple is still fighting the battle even after the clear refusal to the court that it will not provide any backdoor access to the a...

In the escalating battle between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Apple over iPhone encryption, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai just sided with Apple's refusal to unlock iPhone . Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to comply with a federal court order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone owned by one of the terrorists in the mass shootings in San Bernardino , California, in December. Here's What the FBI is Demanding: The federal officials have asked Apple to make a less secure version of its iOS that can be used by the officials to brute force the 4-6 digits passcode on the dead shooter's iPhone without getting the device's data self-destructed. Cook called the court order a "chilling" demand that "would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect." He argued that to help the FBI unlock the iPhone would basically ...

The Tech Giant Apple has come into an entangled situation which could be a potential security threat for Apple users in near future: Help the FBI Unlock an iPhone . The US Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym has ordered Apple to provide a reasonable technical assistance in solving a critical case of Syed Farook ; who with his wife Tashfeen Malik planned a coordinated "2015 San Bernardino attack" that killed 14 people injured 22. As part of the investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had seized the Farook's iPhone 5C that would be considered as an insufficient evidence until and unless the iPhone gets unlocked by any means. Previously, Apple had made several crystal clear statements about its Encryption Policy , stating that even the company is not able to decrypt any phone data as the private key lies at the user's end. A similar problem encountered three years back with Lavabit, who was forced to shut down its services soon after when F...

If you own a Samsung Galaxy Phone – S6, S6 Edge or Note 4 , in particular – there are chances that a skilled hacker could remotely intercept your voice calls to listen in and even record all your voice conversations. Two security researchers, Daniel Komaromy of San Francisco and Nico Golde of Berlin, have demonstrated exactly the same during a security conference in Tokyo. The duo demonstrated a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack on an out-of-the-box and most updated Samsung handset that allowed them to intercept voice calls by connecting the device to fake cellular base stations. The issue actually resides in the Samsung's baseband chip , which comes in Samsung handsets, that handles voice calls but is not directly accessible to the end user. How to Intercept Voice Calls? The researchers set up a bogus OpenBTS base station that nearby Samsung devices, including the latest Samsung S6 and S6 Edge , think is a legitimate cellular tower. Once connected to ...

The German authorities have initiated a further investigation into espionage by the United States secret service NSA and British intelligence agency GCHQ after...   ...the head of the German Federal Chancellery unit had his private laptop infected. According to a recent report published by Der Spiegel , the laptop of the Chancellery division leader was infected with Regin – a highly advanced espionage malware program that has been linked to the National Security Agency (NSA) and its UK counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). As The Hacker News reported almost a year ago, Regin is one of the most highly advanced, sophisticated malware programs that was used to spy on a wide range of international targets including: Internet service providers (ISPs) Telecommunications backbone operators Energy firms Airlines Government entities Research institutes Other high-profile individuals …around the world since at least 2008. Regin h...

What if your phone starts making calls, sending text messages and browsing Internet itself without even asking you? No imaginations, because hackers can make this possible using your phone's personal assistant Siri or Google Now. Security researchers have discovered a new hack that could allow hackers to make calls, send texts, browser a malware site, and do many more activities using your iOS or Android devices' personal assistant Siri or Google Now — without even speaking a single word. A Group of researchers from French government agency ANSSI have discovered that a hacker can control Apple's Siri and Android's Google Now by remotely and silently transmitting radio commands from as far as 16 feet away... ...only if it also has a pair of headphones plugged into its jack. How does the Hack Work? It is very interesting and a mind-blowing technique. The Hack utilizes: An iPhone or Android handset with headphones plugged in A radio tra...

Less than a month after Apple suffered one of its biggest malware attacks ever, security researchers have discovered another strain of malware that they claim targets both jailbroken as well as non-jailbroken iOS devices . Last month, researchers identified more than 4,000 infected apps in Apple's official App Store, which was targeted by a malware attack in which some versions of software used by developers to build apps for iOS and OS X were infected with malware, named XcodeGhost . And Now: Researchers from a California-based network security firm Palo Alto Networks have discovered new malware that targets Apple's iOS users in China and Taiwan. Capabilities of YiSpecter Malware Dubbed YiSpecter , the malware infects iOS devices and once infected, YiSpecter can: Install unwanted apps Replace legitimate apps with ones it has downloaded Force apps to display unwanted, full-screen ads Change bookmarks as well as default search engines in Safari S...

Apple iOS 9 , codenamed Monarch , will be available to the world on September 16th. While most of the upgrades on iOS 9 focus on making devices: Faster Smarter Secure and more efficient. Today we are going to discuss the improved Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) pumped within the new iOS operating system. WHAT'S NEW AND HOW IT WORKS Apple has strengthened the foundation of iOS 9 and further of your device by modifying the operating system with an improved two-factor authentication built into it. As the two-factor authentication structure lies within the operating system, this makes the device's Apple ID even harder to break. 2FA secures your Apple ID by acting as an additional support to protect your data on your device, preventing any intrusion to occur on your device. Also, when you have more than one devices running Apple's operating system, 2FA enables sign-in on a new device in a streamlined manner… ...Besides verifying your identi...

Jailbreaking your device may have got you the best of apps but after reading this you will know what a high price you could have to pay for the jailbreak. Read on… A malware named ' KeyRaider ' has supposedly stolen user credentials of approximately 225K iPhone users. It has been given this name as it raids victims' username and passwords, private keys and certificates. Figures say that KeyRaider malware has affected a large number of users in China and worldwide 17 more countries. Also, the origin of malware is suspected to be in China, as said in investigations conducted by Palo Alto Networks for reporting any suspicious tweaks on iPhones. Users falling prey to KeyRaider may be the victims of: Ransomware Data Theft DDoS Attacks Malware is targeting jailbroken phones and when in action, it captures Apple ID of the users and make transactions using it. The researchers say that it is spreading with the help of Cydia app repositories that are popular amo...

Good news for iOS 8.4 users! The Chinese jailbreaking team TaiG has finally released its long-awaited Untethered Jailbreak tool for Apple's iOS 8.4 mobile operating system for the Mac OS X platform. Yes, TaiG Jailbreak is now officially available for OS X users that will allow you to jailbreak iOS 8.4 on your Mac computer without having to resort to using a virtual machine. In late June, the TaiG team released the Jailbreak tool (.exe) only for Windows version, forcing Macs users to rely on other applications or use Boot Camp to tweak their iOS devices. TaiG Jailbreak for Mac, currently at Mac version 1.0.0, is designed from the ground up to support versions of iOS mobile operating system from 8.1.3 to 8.4. You can download the tool from the project's website. How to JailBreak your Device? The process of jailbreaking the device is so easy; anyone can do it. Download and Install the App Disable 'Find My iPhone' on your device's iCloud settings before p...

Just last week iPhone and iPad users were dealing with an iOS text bug that caused the app to crash and iPhones to reboot , now a similar bug has been found that takes out Skype — the popular video chat and messaging service. Yes, Microsoft-owned Skype VoIP client is also affected by a bug that crashes almost every single version of the Skype client on both desktops and mobile phones with a single message containing just eight characters. Also: The impacts are so bad that it requires a re-install in order to get things working hitch-free again. Just Send 'https://:' and Crash Skype If a user receives a message during a conversation on Skype containing the text string " https://: " (without the quotes), it reportedly crashes Skype when running on Windows, Android, or iOS operating system, according to reports on Skype forums . However, Skype app for Mac and the modern touch-optimized version of Skype app for Windows 8.1 are reportedly unaffecte...

We reported you about a new bug in the core component of iOS and OS X that causes the device's Messages app to crash and iPhones to reboot if it receives a certain string of characters , Arabic characters , via text message. Many have since fallen victims to this specially crafted sequence of Unicode bug . It is believed that when this malicious string of characters is sent in a text message, it will crash an iThing when the text is displayed as a notification on an iPhone, iPad, or Apple watch. Not iMessages alone, Snapchat and Twitter on iOS devices are also vulnerable to this iPhone crash text bug as they also use the CoreText component to display text on-screen. Here's the unique text that's causing the iPhone crash: effective. Power لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗 It's been really annoying that people all across the world are messaging each other the secret string of unique characters that resets the phone, causing it to turn on and off. ...

A newly discovered bug in Apple's iOS mobile operating system has emerged this evening that lets iPhone users crash another user's iPhone by just sending a tiny string of text characters in a message. The bug is related to the Messages app and the notification system used by iPhone and iPad devices and appears to work only if there is iPhone to iPhone communication. A string of particular Arabic characters ( see the image above ) used in the text message causes the iPhone to continuously crash when a certain text is received and — reportedly in some cases — causes the iPhone to reboot without notice. How to Crash an iPhone with a Message: iPhone users who receive the string of text characters with Messages open would not be able to go back to other conversations without crashing the app, but… ...if the string is received while the iPhone is on the lock screen, users would be unable to open the Messages app entirely , or in some cases, the text could cause t...

Security researchers have uncovered a zero-day vulnerability in iOS 8 that could repeatedly crash users' Apple iPhones, iPads and iPods when the devices connect to a malicious wireless hotspot. It's like Denial of Service (DoS) attack on Apple's iOS devices that results in crashing either individual iOS apps or users' entire iPhones. NO iOS ZONE Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit of Mobile security firm Skycure presented their latest research, titled " No iOS Zone ", at the RSA security conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. The duo showed: It is possible for an attacker to create malicious Wi-Fi networks in order to crash nearby users' mobile devices with incredible accuracy. Also, even the "No iOS Zone" attack is capable to make iOS things within the range completely unusable by triggering constant numbers of reboots. It is nothing but a DoS attack… ...that makes the device inaccessible by its users, just like in the ca...