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iOS Trojan Targets Hong Kong Protestors

Posted by samzenpus on from the protect-ya-neck dept.

First time accepted submitter Kexel writes Security researchers have claimed to discover the first Apple iOS Trojan attack in a move to thwart the communications of pro-democracy Hong Kong activists. From the article: "The malicious software, known as Xsser, is capable of stealing text messages, photos, call logs, passwords and other data from Apple mobile devices, researchers with Lacoon Mobile Security said on Tuesday. They uncovered the spyware while investigating similar malware for Google Inc's Android operating system last week that also targeted Hong Kong protesters. Anonymous attackers spread the Android spyware via WhatsApp, sending malicious links to download the program, according to Lacoon. It is unclear how iOS devices get infected with Xsser, which is not disguised as an app."

5 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Advanced? Requires a Jailbreak & manual ins by Noah+Haders · · Score: 5, Insightful

    +1000 relevant. when any iOS malware is reported, the first question is, "does it require jailbreaking". To my knowledge all of the trojan/spyware/NSAware/etc require a jailbroken iphone.

  2. Re:Advanced? Requires a Jailbreak & manual ins by Noah+Haders · · Score: 4, Insightful

    oh by the way, the exploit to jailbreak ios7 was developed by a previously-unknown Chinese haX0r group. Just putting that out there.

  3. Attention Slashdot Editors by rabtech · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is this a story about iOS malware? Then you should require the answer to this question:

    1. DOES IT REQUIRE JAILBREAK?

    The only *interesting* iOS malware story is one that does not require jailbreak. I'm not aware of any; there may be some that use known or unknown exploits, but in this case the malware requires the user to have a jailbroken phone. That's not news or "stuff that matters".

    Sincerely,
    Slashdot Readers

    --
    Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
  4. Wow, that was quick. by baudilus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds to me like that had this ready to go, even before the protests. I'd imagine that the percentage of jailbroken iOS devices in China markedly outstrips those in the western world, given the political climate and sandboxed internet there. It seems that the government was both aware of the devices and had the gun cocked and ready to fire.

  5. Re:Advanced? Requires a Jailbreak & manual ins by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps stories like this will make clear what the costs of disabling code signing really are, to be weighed against the incentive to disable it ...