Dive Brief:
- Apple said its App Store suffered its first large-scale attack on Sunday, Reuters reports.
- A malicious program called XcodeGhost was embedded in hundreds of legitimate apps.
- Chinese security firm Qihoo360 Technology said it uncovered 344 apps tainted with XcodeGhost.
Dive Insight:
The hackers embedded the malicious code by convincing developers to use a tainted version of Apple's software for creating iOS and Mac apps, Apple said.
"We've removed the apps from the App Store that we know have been created with this counterfeit software," Apple spokeswoman Christine Monaghan said. "We are working with the developers to make sure they’re using the proper version of Xcode to rebuild their apps."
Palo Alto Networks Director of Threat Intelligence Ryan Olson said there didn’t appear to be "any data theft or other harm as a result of the attack," Reuters reports.
Prior to the incident, only five malicious apps had ever been found in the App Store, according to Olson. The new break-in is noteworthy, however, because it's the first time the App Store has been compromised by hackers infecting the machines of app developers.
