Apple: hundreds of Chinese applications infected … – Le Monde

Never the Apple application store had been the victim of such an attack. Sunday, September 20, Apple acknowledged that applications had been infected by malicious software (malware). A few days earlier, several computer security companies had revealed the presence of this malware in hundreds of applications validated through the Apple Store.

Dubbed XcodeGhost, this software would be able to collect data and transmit them to a remote server, says on its website the IT security company Palo Alto Networks. The Chinese company Qihoo 360 Technology Co. has detected 344 applications concerned. Among the infected applications, many from China, as WeChat, a popular messaging application or Kuaidi Didi, the competitor Uber.

This is because of the method, original, used by pirates to reach them. They have made available on Chinese servers, an infected version of Xcode, Apple’s software for manufacturing applications. Many developers have downloaded this version and would be used to work on their own applications, which would then have been infected in turn.

No flight data

“ Removed from the App Store applications that have been created, as we know, with that counterfeit software ,” assured spokeswoman Christine Monaghan Apple in e -mail sent to the Reuters news agency. “ We work with developers to ensure they use the correct version of Xcode to rebuild their applications. “However, it gave no instructions to iPhone users or potentially affected by the malware iPad.

After the discovery of this malware, Palo Alto Networks has however not find any example of data theft or other problems related to this software. Tencent The company behind the WeChat application affected by this malware, assured that no data theft was detected among its users.

Earlier this month, Palo Alto Networks had revealed the presence of another software maltveillant for iPhones and unbridled iPad, which would have to steal the IDs of more than 225,000 Apple accounts

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