A new form of malware recently discovered by the Palo Alto Networks Inc. poses a severe threat to Apple’s devices, The Westside Story reports. The malware called WireLurker uses infected OS X computers connected to iOS running devices – iPhones and iPads – to infect the mobile devices, and installs unwanted third party mobile apps on them, no matter if they are jailbroken or not.
WireLurker was first spotted in China, after being distributed through the Maiyadi App Store, a provider of third party applications for computers running Apple’s Mac OS X. When infecting the computer, the malware monitors any iOS device connected to the USB ports of the computer. Once it detects one, it installs automatically generated malicious applications or downloaded third party applications on it automatically. Besides, it is capable of exporting the iOS device’s serial number, phone number, model number, device type, Apple ID, UDID, WiFi address, and disk usage information.
Other cases of similar attack methods were recently detected, so the method used by WireLurker to invade an iOS device off the air is hardly new, but this is the first time a malware uses an infected desktop device to do so. Besides, the fact that it uses a unique and new combination of methods to affect the targeted devices raises it to a new level of threat to Apple-built devices. Currently no major virus scanners or websites can properly identify it. The security company reporting WireLurker has a solution to mitigate its effects or to prevent it from infecting your device – you can read the complete report here.
WireLurker is the third malware reported for Apple devices in the last few months, indicating that despite Apple’s efforts to make its mobile operating system almost immune to malware over the air has forced attackers to successfully find new ways.