Dive Brief:
- Apple released an emergency patch Thursday to fix a security loophole in iPhones and iPads.
- The patch was released after an United Arab Emirates dissident, Ahmed Mansoor, was sent a text inviting him to click on a web link.
- Mansoor forwarded the message to researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, who determined the link would have taken advantage of a flaw in iOS.
Dive Insight:
As use of mobile continues to grow, attackers are putting more effort into developing exploits for mobile devices. Companies that supply their workers with mobile devices may want to take extra efforts to ensure workers are aware of and avoid typical types of exploits like unsolicited links.
Citizen Lab researchers traced the rogue software to NSO Group, an Israeli company that makes software that can “secretly target a user's mobile phone and gather information from it.”
After the university researchers contacted Apple, the company developed a fix and distributed it as an automatic update to iPhone 6 owners, according to Apple spokesman Fred Sainz.
