Dive Brief:
- Apple’s chief marketing executive said the company is already instituting a number of steps to ensure another App Store attack does not occur, Reuters reports.
- According to cyber security firm Palo Alto Networks Inc., a total of only five malicious apps had ever been found in the App Store prior to Sunday’s attack.
- Apple said the tainted apps do not appear to have been used to transmit customer data.
Dive Insight:
Phil Schiller told Chinese app developers that Apple will take steps to make it easier for them to download app development tools as part of an effort to prevent additional attacks on the App Store, Reuters reports. Some app developers say they resorted to downloading unofficial, third-party tools because of slow speeds downloading from Apple's official servers. However, some of those third-party tools were tainted with a malicious program called XcodeGhost that was consequently embedded in hundreds of legitimate apps.
Apple said it has identified 25 tainted apps thus far, including WeChat, car-hailing app Didi Kuaidi and a music app from Internet portal NetEase Inc. However, Chinese security firm Qihoo360 Technology said it uncovered 344 apps tainted with XcodeGhost. The incident demonstrated yet another clever way hackers are infiltrating networks.
