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Apple has released the latest version of its mobile platform i.e. iOS 7.0.4 includes bug fixes, security patches with some new features. The update is available for iPhone , iPad and iPod touch, identified as " build 11B554a ." Most importantly Apple has patched a critical security flaw that allowed to purchase stuff from the online Apple Store without having to tap in a valid password. Vulnerability assigned as  CVE-2013-5193 , " A signed-in user may be able to complete a transaction without providing a password when prompted. This issue was addressed by additional enforcement of purchase authorization. " Apple's security bulletin says. The patch restores the aforementioned authentication check and will allow app store transactions only  if the user will provide a valid password. The update also addressed an issue that would cause FaceTime calls to fail for some users. Apple recommended users to update their devices immediately. iOS users ca

While shopping online we need to first surf through number of pages and then finally have to fill credit and debit cards details manually into the browser, which is the annoying for most of the user. But now the new Safari feature in iOS 8 solves this problem by integrating camera-based Credit and Debit card reader. Apple will soon introduce this feature to Safari in its latest Operating System iOS 8 that will allow its iPhone/iPad users to scan their physical credit and debit cards with their device camera and optical character recognition, according to 9to5Mac . So when a user has to shop online using their iPhone or iPad and reach the payment screen for payment, safari browser will automatically display this " Scan Credit Card " option. This option will help your camera to capture the image of your credit card, which the device will analyze by using the optical character recognition to input the card number into the appropriate text field in the online payment form

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

The ability to turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot is a fantastically useful little tool in and of itself. When setting up a personal hotspot on their iPad or iPhone, users have the option of allowing iOS to automatically generate a password. According to a new study by Researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany, iOS-generated passwords use a very specific formula one which the experienced hacker can crack in less than a minute. Using an iOS app written in Apple's own Xcode programming environment, the team set to work analyzing the words that Apple uses to generate its security keys . Apple's hotspot uses a standard WPA2 -type process, which includes the creation and passing of pre-shared keys (PSK). They found that the default passwords are made up of a combination of a short dictionary words followed by a series of random numbers and this method actually leaves them vulnerable to  brute force attack . The word list Apple uses contains approximately 52,500

Merely weeks after releasing out-of-band patches for iOS, iPadOS, macOS and watchOS, Apple has issued yet another security update for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch to fix a critical zero-day weakness that it says is being actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2021-1879 , the vulnerability relates to a WebKit flaw that could enable adversaries to process maliciously crafted web content that may result in universal cross-site scripting attacks. "This issue was addressed by improved management of object lifetimes," the iPhone maker noted. Apple has credited Clement Lecigne and Billy Leonard of Google's Threat Analysis Group for discovering and reporting the issue. While details of the flaw have not been disclosed, the company said it's aware of reports that CVE-2021-1879 may have been actively exploited. Updates are available for the following devices: iOS 12.5.2  - Phone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, and iPod touch (6t

India-linked highly targeted mobile malware campaign, first unveiled two weeks ago , has been found to be part of a broader campaign targeting multiple platforms, including windows devices and possibly Android as well. As reported in our previous article , earlier this month researchers at Talos threat intelligence unit discovered a group of Indian hackers abusing mobile device management (MDM) service to hijack and spy on a few targeted iPhone users in India. Operating since August 2015, the attackers have been found abusing MDM service to remotely install malicious versions of legitimate apps, including Telegram, WhatsApp, and PrayTime, onto targeted iPhones. These modified apps have been designed to secretly spy on iOS users, and steal their real-time location, SMS, contacts, photos and private messages from third-party chatting applications. During their ongoing investigation, Talos researchers identified a new MDM infrastructure and several malicious binaries – designed

Apple has finally released iOS 12.1.4 software update to patch the terrible Group FaceTime privacy bug that could have allowed an Apple user to call you via the FaceTime video chat service and hear or see you before you even pick up the call without your knowledge. The Facetime bug (CVE-2019-6223) was discovered by 14-year-old Grant Thompson of Catalina Foothills High School while he was trying to set up a Group FaceTime session with his friends. Thompson reported the bug to the company a week before it made headlines across the internet, forcing Apple to temporarily disable the group calling feature within FaceTime. In its advisory published Thursday, Apple described the bug as "a logic issue existed in the handling of Group FaceTime calls," that also impacted the group FaceTime calling feature on Apple's macOS Mojave 10.14.2. Along with Thompson, Apple has also credited Daven Morris of Arlington, Texas, in its official advisory for reporting this bug. Acc

Be careful while plugging your iPhone into a friend's laptop for a quick charge or sharing selected files. Researchers at Symantec have issued a security warning for iPhone and iPad users about a new attack, which they named " TrustJacking ," that could allow someone you trust to remotely take persistent control of, and extract data from your Apple device. Apple provides an iTunes Wi-Fi sync feature in iOS that allows users to sync their iPhones to a computer wirelessly. To enable this feature, users have to grant one-time permission to a trusted computer (with iTunes) over a USB cable. Once enabled, the feature allows the computer owner to secretly spy on your iPhone over the Wi-Fi network without requiring any authentication, even when your phone is no longer physically connected to that computer. "Reading the text, the user is led to believe that this is only relevant while the device is physically connected to the computer, so assumes that disconnecti

Apple has removed several apps from its official iOS App Store that have the ability to compromise encrypted connections between the servers and the end-users. Apple has officially said: We have removed a "few" apps from the iOS App Store that could install root certificates and allow monitoring your data. It's like- they have analyzed and admitted that they lacked in the auditing of the App Store hosted Apps. The company is also advising its users to uninstall the malicious apps from their iPhones, iPads and iPods in order to prevent themselves from monitoring, though it has yet to name the offending apps. App Store Apps Spy on Encrypted Traffic The challenge that stood before Apple was, they discovered that "few" of the Apps in the iOS App Store were capable of spying on the users by compromising SSL/TLS security solutions of their online communication. Root certificates are the fundamental part of how encrypted connections like HTT

Smartphone manufacturers are adding ways for owners to track and manage their phones if they ever get lost or stolen. Find My iPhone is a service that comes with every iOS device that allows you to track your iPhone, whether it was lost or stolen. Normally, the iPhone requires a password if you want to deactivate " Find My iPhone ", but it isn't entirely perfect and thieves are now smart enough to disable ' Find My iPhone ' on devices running iOS 7.0.4 and lower version, without having to enter a password. The exploit was discovered and demonstrated security researcher ' Bradley Williams ' and performing a successful bypass means you won't be able to locate, make sound and wipe out. The vulnerability could put the devices at risk, and the exploitation method involves a few simple steps that involve making changes in the iCloud settings, even if they don't know the password. Steps to hack 'Find My iPhone': Navigate to iCloud in the settin

An Android version of one of the most sophisticated mobile spyware has been discovered that remained undetected for at least three years due to its smart self-destruction capabilities. Dubbed Chrysaor , the Android spyware has been used in targeted attacks against activists and journalists mostly in Israel, but also in Georgia, Turkey, Mexico, the UAE and other countries. Chrysaor espionage malware, uncovered by researchers at Lookout and Google, is believed to be created by the same Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group Technologies, who was behind the Pegasus iOS spyware initially detected in targeted attacks against human rights activists in the United Arab Emirates last year. NSO Group Technologies is believed to produce the most advanced mobile spyware on the planet and sold them to governments, law enforcement agencies worldwide, as well as dictatorial regimes. The newly discovered Chrysaor spyware has been found installed on fewer than three-dozen Android devices, al

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has warned Apple that it may force the tech giant for handing over the source code to the complete operating system if it does not help the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone . Apple is battling with the FBI over iPhone encryption case. The federal investigators needs Apple's assistance to unlock an iPhone 5C belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook has said explicitly that providing a backdoor would likely open up the company's iPhones to not just the federal agents, but also to malicious hackers who could use it for evil purposes. On Thursday, Apple and the FBI head to another court hearing on the San Bernardino iPhone case. The DOJ's latest 43-page brief filing contains an implicit threat that if Apple does not create the vulnerable version of its iOS operating system needed to bypass the passcode protection on the terroris

An ad fraud botnet dubbed  PEACHPIT  leveraged an army of hundreds of thousands of Android and iOS devices to generate illicit profits for the threat actors behind the scheme. The botnet is part of a larger China-based operation codenamed  BADBOX , which also entails selling off-brand mobile and connected TV (CTV) devices on popular online retailers and resale sites that are backdoored with an  Android malware strain  called  Triada . "The PEACHPIT botnet's conglomerate of associated apps were found in 227 countries and territories, with an estimated peak of 121,000 devices a day on Android and 159,000 devices a day on iOS," HUMAN  said . The infections are said to have been realized through a collection of 39 apps that were installed more than 15 million times. Devices fitted with the BADBOX malware allowed the operators to steal sensitive data, create residential proxy exit peers, and commit ad fraud through the bogus apps. It's currently not clear how the And

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a "renewed" cyber espionage campaign targeting users in South Asia with the aim of delivering an Apple iOS spyware implant called  LightSpy . "The latest iteration of LightSpy, dubbed 'F_Warehouse,' boasts a modular framework with extensive spying features," the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a report published last week. There is evidence to suggest that the campaign may have targeted India based on  VirusTotal   submissions  from within its borders. First documented in 2020 by Trend Micro and Kaspersky,  LightSpy  refers to an advanced iOS backdoor that's distributed via watering hole attacks through compromised news sites. A subsequent analysis from ThreatFabric in October 2023  uncovered  infrastructure and functionality overlaps between the malware and DragonEgg, a fully-featured Android spyware attributed to the Chinese nation-state group APT41 (aka Winnti). The initial in

Unlike Google Play Store, Apple App Store is well known for not allowing any malformed apps to enter its Apple ecosystem because of its tight security checks. But, not anymore. Hundreds of malicious apps managed to get hosted on Apple's official App store and subsequently downloaded by  several hundred Million iPad and iPhone owners . Out of them, Palo Alto Networks published a list of 39 malicious yet legitimate apps that made ways to the App Store.  First Major Malware Attack on Apple's App Store Yes, Apple App Store is targeted by a malware attack in which some versions of software used by software developers to build their apps for iOS and OS X were infected with malware, named XcodeGhost . XcodeGhost secretly sniffs off data from customer's device and uploads it to the attacker's servers without the user's knowledge, according to security firm Palo Alto Networks. Apps were infected after developers used a malicious version of the X

Apple on Wednesday rolled out security patches to address a new zero-day flaw in iOS and iPadOS that it said has come under active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2023-42824 , the kernel vulnerability could be abused by a local attacker to elevate their privileges. The iPhone maker said it addressed the problem with improved checks. "Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.6," the company  noted  in a terse advisory. While additional details about the nature of the attacks and the identity of the threat actors perpetrating them are currently unknown, successful exploitation likely hinges on an attacker already obtaining an initial foothold by some other means. Apple's latest update also resolves  CVE-2023-5217  impacting the WebRTC component, which Google last week described as a heap-based buffer overflow in the VP8 compression format in libvpx. The patches, iOS 17.0.3 and iPadOS 1

Tech giant Apple on Monday rolled out updates to remediate a zero-day flaw in iOS and iPadOS that it said has been actively exploited in the wild. The weakness, given the identifier CVE-2022-42827 , has been described as an out-of-bounds write issue in the Kernel, which could be abused by a rogue application to execute arbitrary code with the highest privileges. Successful exploitation of out-of-bounds write flaws, which typically occur when a program attempts to write data to a memory location that's outside of the bounds of what it is allowed to access, can result in corruption of data, a crash, or execution of unauthorized code. The iPhone maker said it addressed the bug with improved bounds checking, while crediting an anonymous researcher for reporting the vulnerability. As is usually the case with actively exploited zero-day flaws, Apple refrained from sharing more specifics about the shortcoming other than acknowledging that it's "aware of a report that this i

Network equipment vendor Cisco is finally warning its customers of another zero-day vulnerability the company discovered in the trove of NSA's hacking exploits and implants leaked by the group calling itself " The Shadow Brokers ." Last month, the Shadow Brokers published firewall exploits, implants, and hacking tools allegedly stolen from the NSA's Equation Group, which was designed to target major vendors including, Cisco, Juniper, and Fortinet. A hacking exploit, dubbed ExtraBacon , leveraged a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2016-6366) resided in the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) code of Cisco ASA software that could allow remote attackers to cause a reload of the affected system or execute malicious code. Now Cisco has found another zero-day exploit , dubbed "Benigncertain," which targets PIX firewalls. Cisco analyzed the exploit and noted that it had not identified any new flaws related to this exploit in its current products. But,

BigBoss repository, one of the biggest and most popular repositories for jailbreak tweaks in Cydia , has reportedly been hacked by either an individual or a group of hackers. Cydia is a software application for iOS that enables a user to find and install software packages on jailbroken iOS Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the iPad. Most of the software packages available through Cydia are free, but some require purchasing. The BigBoss repository is default repository in jailbroken iOS devices and has long been one of Cydia's biggest and best, but it may have just been targeted by cybercriminals. The hackers, who go by the name "Kim Jong-Cracks", managed to gain access to all packages , including all paid as well as free, and made their own repository available with all BigBoss repository applications for free. " The other post more than likely broke rule 1 because it linked the site directly. To anyone that didn't see the post the BigBoss rep

One of the most powerful, infamous, and advanced piece of government-grade commercial surveillance spyware dubbed FinSpy —also known as FinFisher —has been discovered in the wild targeting users in Myanmar. Created by German company Gamma International, FinSpy is spying software that can target various mobile platforms including iOS and Android, we well as desktop operating systems. Gamma Group reportedly sells its controversial FinSpy espionage tool exclusively to government agencies across the world, but also gained notoriety for targeting human rights activists in many countries. The FinSpy implant is capable of stealing an extensive amount of personal information from targeted mobile devices, such as SMS/MMS messages, phone call recordings, emails, contacts, pictures, files, and GPS location data. In its latest report published today, Kaspersky researchers revealed a cyber-espionage campaign that involves targeting Myanmar users with the latest versions of FinSpy impl