Google researchers have uncovered a malicious campaign that targeted the iPhone for at least two years. According to researchers, this campaign has stopped, though they warn that there may be other ways they have not yet identified.
The team security Project Zero, announced that it had discovered some malicious websites that could be used to infringe on Apple devices, using five different personalized exploits.
The exploits used 14 different vulnerabilities that covered every release from iOS 10 to iOS 12. Apple released an update to iOS 12.1.4 in February after Project Zero researchers revealed the vulnerabilities and gave the company a week to fix them.
The Project Zero team usually follows one strict disclosure period of 90 days, but in this case it only gave a week because of the severity of the vulnerabilities.
The team researcher Google Project Zero Ian Beer reported:
A simple visit to the site was enough for an attack on your device and if the attack was successful, the device would get a malicious tracking application. We estimate that these sites had thousands of visitors a week.
14 vulnerabilities existed in Safari and the kernel, except for two separate cases of sandbox escapes, where malicious code could run beyond the boundaries of an application.
In short, the 5 exploits gave elevated “root” privileges to the attacker with full rights to install malicious preletterand access device files sent every 60 seconds by a command and control server.
But it is more worryingly, the malware also uploaded the devices' keychain, which usesται για την ασφαλή αποθήκευση δεδομένων, (π.χ. κωδικούς access Wi-Fi codes, and certificates) from well-known applications such as: WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype, Facebook, Viber, Gmail and Outlook.
______________________
- Windows Repair Toolbox: Free Windows Diagnostics and Repair
- Champion worldwide in Cybersecurity Leadership Matrix 2019 or ESET
- Common Voice from Mozilla's anti-racist voice recognition
