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North Korean Hackers Are Now Developing iPhone Spy Tools (forbes.com)

Posted by msmash on from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Probing the bowels of what he believed to be North Korean hacking architecture, American cybersecurity researcher Darien Huss found an outlier: iPhone software. It appeared at first glance to be a fairly mundane program, a mobile device management (MDM) tool. Such apps are typically used for businesses to remotely monitor and control employees' phones. But, according to Huss, it's most likely one of, if not the only, example of North Korean spyware for Apple's smartphone.

It's unlikely the MDM app was anything other than malicious, said Huss, an employee of cybersecurity company Proofpoint. Tellingly, it was located on a server believed to contain other hacking tools, in particular those for Microsoft Windows, that he'd linked to one of the bigger North Korean hacking groups, the researcher explained to Forbes. If the iPhone tool is indeed a piece of spyware, Huss hasn't seen it used yet. He believes it's currently in development by that North Korean-linked hacker crew, though Proofpoint declined to provide additional details on his research.

8 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. "Probing the bowels...." by olsmeister · · Score: 1

    Couldn't come up with a better lead in?

    1. Re:"Probing the bowels...." by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Couldn't come up with a better lead in?

      I can't help but believe that was deliberate. It's amusing nonetheless.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:"Probing the bowels...." by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      I'm thinking that their potential best customer will be stopping by in about a month.

  2. Re:No more nukes. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    That's why they are giving up their nuke program. It's far cheaper and more effective to wage cyberwar on the US.

    The Russians showed them that.

    North Korea will manipulate us into electing Denis Rodman as our next president.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  3. Can we stop greenlighting these stories? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    This isn't even news. It would be news if they _weren't_ making phone hacking tools. This is just more propaganda to lead up to a war. Right now it's pretty innocuous because it's just getting started, but if the media keeps falling in line behind the administration we're gonna have Iraq II: Electric Boogaloo.

    They're doing the same thing with Iran, btw. Don't fall for it.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Can we stop greenlighting these stories? by dj245 · · Score: 1

      This isn't even news. It would be news if they _weren't_ making phone hacking tools. This is just more propaganda to lead up to a war. Right now it's pretty innocuous because it's just getting started, but if the media keeps falling in line behind the administration we're gonna have Iraq II: Electric Boogaloo. They're doing the same thing with Iran, btw. Don't fall for it.

      It seems like a whole lot of propaganda to me. North Korea is apparently broke as hell, their people are starving, the economy is in shambles, their military is outdated, and the nuclear facility collapsed so that means their negotiation position is nothing. At the same time, they are cybersecurity masterminds, capable of cyber activities meeting or exceeding the CIA's. This dichotomy could be true, but it is more reasonable that it isn't.

      If I was running a cyberwarfare program, North Korea would be the perfect continuous false flag. Nobody would be taken seriously if they said that the Democratic Republic of the Congo were cyber warfare experts. I'm sure North Korea has some capabilities but they are super small fry compared to Russia and China.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  4. The FBI is Worried... by Thelasko · · Score: 1

    because North Korea can hack and IPhone and they can't.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    1. Re:The FBI is Worried... by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      That peace will break out and the over time for watching the embassy will be reduced.
      Wont someone think of the deep state contractors.

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      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"