Apple Mac – Page 6 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2017 13:23:00 -0700

Hackers claiming to have hundreds of millions of iCloud credentials have threatened to wipe date from iPhones, iPads and Macs if Apple does not fork over $150,000 within two weeks.

“This group is known for getting accounts and credentials, they have gotten credentials in the past,” said Lamar Bailey, director of security research and development at Tripwire, of the purported hackers. “But whether they have that many … who knows?”

There’s another reason for not panicking, Bailey said: People can quickly make their accounts more secure, assuming the criminals have only collected, not actually compromised the iCloud accounts by changing millions of passwords.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Apple says it has already patched ‘many’ (not all) leaked CIA exploits

March 8, 2017 admin Apple iOS, Apple Mac, Security

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2017 03:51:00 -0800

Details concerning multiple iOS, Mac, and AirPort exploits allegedly used by the CIA were published by Wikileaks late last night.

The documents reveal an extensive quantity of exploits used against Apple devices, thought WikiLeaks has not published any of the technical details or computer code that was also leaked to prevent these hacks disseminating any further. (Though we don’t know who else got the data).

Post-privacy

The documents offer the deepest look yet into how intelligence services (including the CIA, GCHQ, and others) have worked together to undermine the security of products from multiple vendors, including Apple.

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ComputerWorld Independent

New macOS ransomware spotted in the wild

February 22, 2017 admin Apple Mac, encryption, MacOS, Malware & Vulnerabilities, Security

Credit to Author: Lucian Constantin| Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2017 11:09:00 -0800

A new file-encrypting ransomware program for macOS is being distributed through bit torrent websites, and users who fall victim to it won’t be able to recover their files — even if they pay.

Crypto ransomware programs for macOS are rare. This is the second such threat found in the wild so far, and it’s a poorly designed one. The program was named OSX/Filecoder.E by the malware researchers from antivirus vendor ESET who found it.

OSX/Filecoder.E masquerades as a cracking tool for commercial software like Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Microsoft Office for Mac. It is written in Apple’s Swift programming language by what appears to be an inexperienced developer, judging from the many mistakes made in its implementation.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Russian cyberspies blamed for U.S. election hacks are now targeting Macs

February 14, 2017 admin Apple Mac, Malware & Vulnerabilities, Security

Credit to Author: Lucian Constantin| Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 10:28:00 -0800

Security researchers have discovered a macOS malware program that’s likely part of the arsenal used by the Russian cyberespionage group blamed for hacking into the U.S. Democratic National Committee last year.

The group — known in the security industry under different names including Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, and APT28 — has been operating for almost a decade. It is believed to be the sole user and likely developer of a Trojan program called Sofacy or X-Agent.

X-Agent variants for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS have been found in the wild in the past, but researchers from Bitdefender have now come across what appears to be the first macOS version of the Trojan.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Apple quashes bugs in iOS, macOS and Safari

January 25, 2017 admin Apple iOS, Apple Mac, MacOS, Security

Apple on Monday updated macOS Sierra to 10.12.3, patching 11 security vulnerabilities and addressing a graphics hardware problem in the latest 15-in. MacBook Pro laptop.

At the same time, Apple released iOS 10.2.1, an update that fixed 18 security flaws, the bulk of them in WebKit, the foundation of the baked-in Safari browser.

According to Apple’s typically terse update documentation, macOS 10.12.3 “improves automatic graphics switching on MacBook Pro (15-in., October 2016).” Another fix addressed “graphics issues” on both the 15-in. and the smaller 13-in. sibling when encoding in Adobe Premiere Pro; that bug attracted attention after a video showing a notebook wildly cycling through colors went viral.

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