ios security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Legal documents released as part of an ongoing legal tussle between Meta's WhatsApp and NSO Group have revealed that the Israeli spyware vendor used multiple exploits targeting the messaging app to deliver Pegasus, including one even after it was sued by Meta for doing so. They also show that NSO Group repeatedly found ways to install the invasive surveillance tool on the target's devices as WhatsApp erected new defenses to counter the threat. In May 2019, WhatsApp said it blocked a sophisticated cyber attack that exploited its video calling system to deliver Pegasus malware surreptitiously. The attack leveraged a then zero-day flaw tracked as CVE-2019-3568 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical buffer overflow bug in the voice call functionality. The documents now show that NSO Group "developed yet another installation vector (known as Erised) that also used WhatsApp servers to install Pegasus." The attack vector – a zero-click exploit that could compromise a victim...

Details have emerged about a now-patched high-severity security flaw in Apple's Shortcuts app that could permit a shortcut to access sensitive information on the device without users' consent. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2024-23204  (CVSS score: 7.5), was addressed by Apple on January 22, 2024, with the release of  iOS 17.3, iPadOS 17.3 ,  macOS Sonoma 14.3 , and  watchOS 10.3 . "A shortcut may be able to use sensitive data with certain actions without prompting the user," the iPhone maker said in an advisory, stating it was fixed with "additional permissions checks." Apple Shortcuts is a  scripting application  that allows users to create personalized workflows (aka macros) for  executing   specific tasks  on their devices. It comes installed by default on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS operating systems. Bitdefender security researcher Jubaer Alnazi Jabin, who discovered and reported the Shortcuts bug, said it could be we...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

The  Operation Triangulation  spyware attacks targeting Apple iOS devices leveraged never-before-seen exploits that made it possible to even bypass pivotal hardware-based security protections erected by the company. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which  discovered  the  campaign  at the beginning of 2023 after becoming one of the targets,  described  it as the "most sophisticated attack chain" it has ever observed to date. The campaign is believed to have been active since 2019. Operation Triangulation gets its name from the use of a fingerprinting technique called canvas fingerprinting to draw a yellow triangle on a pink background with Web Graphics Library ( WebGL ) in the device's memory. The exploitation activity involved the use of four zero-day flaws that were fashioned into a chain to obtain an unprecedented level of access and backdoor target devices running iOS versions up to iOS 16.2 with the ultimate goal of gathering ...

A new "post-exploitation tampering technique" can be abused by malicious actors to visually deceive a target into believing that their Apple iPhone is running in Lockdown Mode when it's actually not and carry out covert attacks. The novel method, detailed by Jamf Threat Labs in a  report  shared with The Hacker News, "shows that if a hacker has already infiltrated your device, they can cause Lockdown Mode to be 'bypassed' when you trigger its activation." In other words, the goal is to implement Fake Lockdown Mode on a device that's compromised by an attacker through other means, such as  unpatched security flaws  that can trigger execution of arbitrary code. Lockdown Mode , introduced by Apple last year with iOS 16, is an  enhanced security measure  that aims to safeguard high-risk individuals from sophisticated digital threats such as mercenary spyware by  minimizing the attack surface . What it doesn't do is prevent the execution of mali...

Apple on Monday released security updates for  iOS ,  macOS , and  watchOS  to address three zero-day flaws and expand patches for a fourth vulnerability that the company said might have been exploited in the wild. The weaknesses all concern WebKit, the browser engine which powers Safari and other third-party web browsers in iOS, allowing an adversary to execute arbitrary code on target devices. A summary of the three security bugs are as follows - CVE-2021-30663:  An integer overflow vulnerability that could be exploited to craft malicious web content, which may lead to code execution. The flaw was addressed with improved input validation. CVE-2021-30665:  A memory corruption issue that could be exploited to craft malicious web content, which may lead to code execution. The flaw was addressed with improved state management. CVE-2021-30666:  A buffer overflow vulnerability that could be exploited to craft malicious web content, which may lead to...

Google Project Zero on Thursday disclosed details of a new security mechanism that Apple quietly added to iOS 14 as a countermeasure to prevent attacks that were recently found to leverage zero-days in its messaging app. Dubbed " BlastDoor ," the improved sandbox system for iMessage data was disclosed by Samuel Groß, a Google Project Zero researcher tasked with studying zero-day vulnerabilities in hardware and software systems. "One of the major changes in iOS 14 is the introduction of a new, tightly sandboxed 'BlastDoor' service which is now responsible for almost all parsing of untrusted data in iMessages," Groß  said . "Furthermore, this service is written in Swift, a (mostly) memory safe language which makes it significantly harder to introduce classic memory corruption vulnerabilities into the code base." The development is a consequence of a  zero-click exploit  that leveraged an Apple iMessage flaw in iOS 13.5.1 to get around security p...

Apple on Tuesday released updates for iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS with fixes for three security vulnerabilities that it says may have been actively exploited in the wild. Reported by an anonymous researcher, the three  zero-day   flaws  — CVE-2021-1782, CVE-2021-1870, and CVE-2021-1871 — could have allowed an attacker to elevate privileges and achieve remote code execution. The iPhone maker did not disclose how widespread the attack was or reveal the identities of the attackers actively exploiting them. While the privilege escalation bug in the kernel (CVE-2021-1782) was noted as a race condition that could cause a malicious application to elevate its privileges, the other two shortcomings — dubbed a "logic issue" — were discovered in the WebKit browser engine (CVE-2021-1870 and CVE-2021-1871), permitting an attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution inside Safari. Apple said the race condition and the WebKit flaws were addressed with improved locking and restrictions, ...

Apple on Thursday released multiple security updates to patch three zero-day vulnerabilities that were revealed as being actively exploited in the wild. Rolled out as part of its iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS updates, the flaws reside in the FontParser component and the kernel, allowing adversaries to remotely execute arbitrary code and run malicious programs with kernel-level privileges. The zero-days were discovered and reported to Apple by Google's Project Zero security team. "Apple is aware of reports that an exploit for this issue exists in the wild," the iPhone maker said of the three zero-days without giving any additional details so as to allow a vast majority of users to install the updates. The list of impacted devices includes iPhone 5s and later, iPod touch 6th and 7th generation, iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and later, and Apple Watch Series 1 and later. The fixes are available in versions iOS 12.4.9 and 14.2, iPadOS 14.2, watchOS 5.3.9, 6.2.9, and 7.1, an...

A popular iOS software development kit (SDK) used by over 1,200 apps—with a total of more than a billion mobile users—is said to contain malicious code with the goal of perpetrating mobile ad-click fraud and capturing sensitive information. According to a report published by cybersecurity firm Snyk , Mintegral — a mobile programmatic advertising platform owned by Chinese mobile ad tech company Mobvista — includes an SDK component that allows it to collect URLs, device identifiers, IP Address, operating system version, and other user sensitive data from compromised apps to a remote logging server. The malicious iOS SDK has been named "SourMint" by Snyk researchers. "The malicious code can spy on user activity by logging URL-based requests made through the app," Snyk's Alyssa Miller said in a Monday analysis. "This activity is logged to a third-party server and could potentially include personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive in...

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...

If you have a "private" blog with WordPress.com and are using its official iOS app to create or edit posts and pages, the secret authentication token for your admin account might have accidentally been leaked to third-party websites. WordPress has recently patched a severe vulnerability in its iOS application that apparently leaked secret authorization tokens for users whose blogs were using images hosted on third-party sites, a spokesperson for Automattic confirmed The Hacker News in an email. Discovered by the team of WordPress engineers, the vulnerability resided in the way WordPress iOS application was fetching images used by private blogs but hosted outside of WordPress.com, for example, Imgur or Flickr. That means, if an image were hosted on Imgur and then when the WordPress iOS app attempted to fetch the image, it would send along a WordPress.com authorization token to Imgur, leaving a copy of the token in the access logs of the Imgur's web server. It sh...

Apple source code for a core component of iPhone's operating system has purportedly been leaked on GitHub, that could allow hackers and researchers to discover currently unknown zero-day vulnerabilities to develop persistent malware and iPhone jailbreaks. The source code appears to be for iBoot —the critical part of the iOS operating system that's responsible for all security checks and ensures a trusted version of iOS is loaded. In other words, it's like the BIOS of an iPhone which makes sure that the kernel and other system files being booted whenever you turn on your iPhone are adequately signed by Apple and are not modified anyhow. The iBoot code was initially shared online several months back on Reddit , but it just resurfaced today on GitHub (repository now unavailable due to DMCA takedown). Motherboard consulted some security experts who have confirmed the legitimacy of the code. However, at this moment, it is unclear if the iBoot source code is complete...

In order to comply with Chinese censorship law , Apple has started removing all virtual private network (VPN) apps from the App Store in China, making it harder for internet users to bypass its Great Firewall. VPN service providers that provide services in China has accused the United States tech giant of complying with Chinese stringent cyberspace regulations. In a blog post , the developers of ExpressVPN reported that Apple informed them that their VPN app had been pulled from the company's Chinese App Store, and it seems all major VPN clients have received the same notice from Apple. China has strict Internet censorship laws through the Great Firewall of China – the country's Golden Shield project that employs a variety of tricks to censor Internet and block access to major foreign websites in the country. The Great Firewall is already blocking some 171 out of the world's 1,000 top websites, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Tumblr, and The Pirate ...

In Brief Do you own an iPhone? Mac? Or any Apple device? Just one specially-crafted message can expose your personal information, including your authentication credentials stored in your device's memory, to a hacker. The vulnerability is quite similar to the Stagefright vulnerabilities , discovered a year ago in Android, that allowed hackers to silently spy on almost a Billion phones with just one specially-crafted text message. Cisco Talos senior researcher Tyler Bohan, who discovered this critical Stagefright-type bug in iOS, described the flaw as "an extremely critical bug, comparable to the Android Stagefright as far as exposure goes." The critical bug (CVE-2016-4631) actually resides in ImageIO – API used to handle image data – and works across all widely-used Apple operating systems, including Mac OS X, tvOS, and watchOS. All an attacker needs to do is create an exploit for the bug and send it via a multimedia message (MMS) or iMessage inside a Tagg...

Apple's new iOS 10 recently made headlines after MIT Technology Review revealed that the company had left the kernel of the mobile operating system unencrypted. Yes, the first developer preview of iOS 10 released at WWDC has an unencrypted kernel. When the headline broke, some of the users were surprised enough that they assumed Apple had made a mistake by leaving unencrypted kernel in iOS 10, and therefore, would get reverted in the next beta version of the operating system. However, Apple managed to confirm everyone that the company left the iOS 10 kernel unencrypted intentionally, as the kernel cache does not contain any critical or private information of users. On iOS, the kernel is responsible for things like security and how applications are capable of accessing the parts of an iPhone or an iPad. But, Why Apple had left the iOS wide open when other features like iMessage offer end-to-end encryption ? Apple did this on purpose, because by leaving the iOS 10 kernel ...

The First major cyber attack on Apple's App Store has now been linked to CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) . Last week, Researchers disclosed some 39 iOS apps on Apple's App Store infected by ' XCodeGhost Malware' . The Bad News is that the infection has now increased exponentially with the discovery of more than 4,000 infected apps. The XCodeGhost malware was distributed through legitimate iOS Apps via counterfeit versions of Apple's app developer toolkit called Xcode . XcodeGhost is a very harmful and dangerous piece of malware that is capable to Phish credentials, infect other apps, Hijack URLs, Steal iCloud passwords from your device and then upload them to the attacker's servers even without your knowledge. After Apple had removed nearly 300 malware-ridden iOS apps from the App Store, FireEye researchers found more than 4,000 compromised apps. The infected apps include the popular instant messaging app WeChat, Chinese Uber-like ca...

iOS 9 is out, and it's time to update your iPhone or iPad to the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system. The new iOS is better, faster, and more efficient than its predecessors, with a number of new features and improvements including enhanced multitasking for iPad, Proactive Assistant Siri, new Low Power mode, Transit directions in Maps and many more. You need to download iOS 9 right away. But, after installing it on your iOS device, you should immediately change these security settings to protect your privacy. Besides various new features, iOS 9 also comes with a handful of security and privacy improvements. So, before doing anything like loading new apps, customizing your phone, or syncing your data, you need to check these settings – and if necessary, changed. 1. Locking the Door Boost iOS 9 Security by Setting a Longer 6-digit Passcode When you set up an iOS device, you are asked to create a passcode to encrypt your entire iPho...

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...