Vulnerability in Apple’s Mobile OS Found and Cured

MixPanel an analytics company for Web and mobile phones has produced data which shows that over 86% of iPhone owners globally continue to be potentially susceptible to vulnerability which lets a hacker wholly gain control of the devices by simply sending them one text message.

An astonishing number of individuals haven't still updated their Apple iPhone OS in spite of one critical alert for doing so issued from the mobile company this past week. This alert was against one prominent security problem which compelled Apple towards fixing it within its iOS 9.3.5.

According to specialists, the malicious exploit was capable of piggybacking on earlier undisclosed weaknesses within the widely adopted operating system (OS) of Apple's mobile phone. In case compromised, hackers become positioned towards gaining full hold over the user's mobile phone.

The exploit, a kind of spying program, can read e-mails, decipher text messages as well as trace the sources of calls/contacts. Moreover, the malware collects passwords, records sounds, and locates the iPhone owner's whereabouts. Dailystar.co.uk posted this, August 28, 2016.

Mike Murray a security researcher with Lookout Security describes the malware as an extremely advanced kind of cyber-espionage program the security community has ever known.

Two other security researchers John Scott-Railton and Bill Marczak from Citizen Lab in a joint task with Lookout Security found the vulnerability and documented it. The vulnerability was revealed on August 24. Abusing it lets an attacker plant advanced spying tools which turns on the microphone and camera of the target iPhone, traces its owner's activities, and logs into the messages it sends and receives.

The researchers named the spyware 'Trident' because it abused 3 0-day vulnerabilities which Apple neither knew of nor fixed them. However, when the researchers notified Apple about the flaws the company released one instant update for iOS.

Currently the exploit is cured, while if iPhone owners maintain fully updated devices they would be saved from the security problem. A particular reason Apple is able to safeguard its users much better than the majority of Android phone owners is that the company manufactures both the software as well as hardware.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/2/2016