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iOS Trojan Targets Hong Kong Protestors
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."
Here's the actual analysis of malware:
https://www.lacoon.com/lacoon-...
+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.
oh by the way, the exploit to jailbreak ios7 was developed by a previously-unknown Chinese haX0r group. Just putting that out there.
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)
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.
Probably a mix of both, because the #1 reason to jailbreak these days seems to be... pirating software. I mean, the iOS 7.12 jailbreak was done by a bunch of Chinese people to promote... their Chinese app store. Which happens to conveniently be filled with pirated apps. (It was one of the things that led to the original iOS7 exploit to be questioned).
So effectively the users jailbreak to get "free apps" from the Chinese app store that also happens to install malware along with it.
I'm guessing the Chinese store must have a lot of pirated apps, because piracy on iOS is just at a lower level - at least on Android there are entire "daily packs" that contain new and freshly updated paid apps on your favorite torrent site (which can be RSS fed to your torrent client). iOS apps ... not so much. Maybe a fraction and not as convenient to get.
IOS 8.0.1 will disrupt cellular communications on an iPhone without the need to root the phone.
It's not a bug, it is a feature.
Fight Spammers!
https://www.lacoon.com/lacoon-...
"Cross-Platform attacks that target both iOS and Android devices are rare, and indicate that this may be conducted by a very large organization or nation state. The fact that this attack is being used against protesters and is being executed by Chinese-speaking attackers suggests it’s first iOS trojan linked to Chinese government cyber activity."
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
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 ...
well, considering that over 50% of all iOS devices are running iOS 8, and no jailbreak exists for this OS, i think there are a lot of people who hasnt jailbroken their phones. anecdotally, I don't know anybody that has done this. oh wait I know one guy but he was a bit of a wanker.