Apple Wages Battle To Keep App Store Malware-Free (networkworld.com)

alphadogg writes: Apple is facing growing challenges keeping suspicious mobile applications out of its App Store marketplace. Over the last two months, researchers have found thousands of apps that could have potentially stolen data from iOS devices. Apple has removed some of affected apps since it was alerted by security companies. But the problems threaten to taint the App Store's years-long reputation as being high quality and malware free.

Comments

Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

[damn_registrars]

They can't really say they are 100% committed to protecting peoples' privacy when they keep pushing out the facebook app - which is of course dedicated to encouraging people to give up as much of their personal information as possible.

Re:Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

[kuzb]

Such Hypocrisy is shared by most large companies. As much as I don't like Apple, they are hardly unique in this. I'd be more worried about their continued human rights violations that they repeatedly claim they've dealt with.

Re:Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

[AK Marc]

What's funny is that so many here don't like Apple that they hold it to a higher standard. Nike has been linked to many more human rights violations they blatantly ignore, and Apple's big sin is that they build in China (like everyone else, but it's somehow worse for Apple).

The suicide rate at Foxconn is less than an average American High School. Until a US president is brought up on crimes against humanity for NCLB, it seems a bit silly to condemn Apple.

Re:Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

[davester666]

No, they have never claimed to have 'fixed' the problem, because it is a problem that is unlikely to fixed anytime soon in China. What they do claim is that they have taken concrete steps to reduce the likelyhood of it happening, both by paying more money for services and by penalties for contract violations [which supposedly include things like workers hours/conditions/no child labor].

Re:Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

[drinkypoo]

What's funny is that so many here don't like Apple that they hold it to a higher standard.

Wrong. People don't like Apple because it is not meeting the same standard as others: It pockets more of the money that it makes through slave labor than others do. Therefore, it can better afford to pay people a living wage, and therefore its behavior is actually more repugnant than that of other corporations.

There's some other things they should focus on!

[AbRASiON]

Before I start, yes I'm an Android guy - but, I do have an iphone and ipad.

How.the.fuck do Apple fans justify that shitty app store? The search is OUTRIGHT BROKEN. It's BROKEN! There's so many fake / spam / SEO'd bullshit apps which come up when you search for something, it's fucking incredible.

It literally doesn't find the app I'm looking for, over 50% of the time.
I mean, I'm cool with tech companies not being perfect but this is the "Ever flawless" Apple who always get things right...? It's fundamentally broken.
I don't even care that the spam exists! so what? But at least fix the algorithm so when I search for "extremely well known app X" it actually returns a result of the "extremely well known app X" I'm looking for.

While I'm railing on them, one more thing* why in all that is !@#%$ing holy, can I not remotely install apps on my iphone / ipad from my PC? Yeah yeah, I'm an Android guy, I mentioned that,...
How can the Google Play store have had this for 3 years+ and third party Android app installers have had it for 5 years. FIVE YEARS.

I'm sitting on my PC for example, reading slashdot, someone says "hey blah blah is a brilliant app on my ipad, it really solved XYZ" I should be able to open a new tab, go to the app store, find the app and click "install to ipad"
It's nearly 2016. How is this fucking missing?
Worst part is, you ask this, even politely and Apple fans will tell you how "wrong you are" for wanting it. (I'm expecting at least a mixed / logical reaction on this site)

Outright crazy, poor design, backwards thinking. These are good features. It's nuts.

* Jesus I wish slashdot was still highly relevant, there might be a miniscule chance of an Apple person actually reading the post and fixing this idiocy.

Re:There's some other things they should focus on!

[radarskiy]

"You have to use iTunes to download an app"
It looks like that because the App Store is not a website and the interface is in iTunes, but downloading to the device does not require connecting the device to the computer with iTunes in any way.

Re:So...app vetting is and always was BS, then?

[cjmnews]

Due to their original design and the use of Objective C, yes.

Their screening process consists of scanning code for using "undocumented" system calls that are restricted for Apple's use only.
Obfuscate those system call strings and you have now bypassed the screening process (ala: XcodeGhost)
Too bad they can't stop it, until they move every app to Swift (now you know why they created a new language).
Even if they could crack every system call string alteration an app could do, the app could request the system call string from a server, and execute it on the fly and get around the scan.

There is probably more to the screening process, but I am doubting there is much more to it.