Tag: iphone apps

1,500 applications could be open to hackers as a result of outdated code that they continue to contain.

Analytics company, SourceDNA, has identified a mobile security bug that likely still exists in about 1,500 apps that could open up these iOS App Store applications to “man in the middle” attacks.

The problem exists in the way that the iOS apps create secure connections with servers.

The reason is that this connection that is established has a bug in it. This means that a mobile security exists in that anyone who intercepts the data being transmitted from an iPhone or iPad would be able to access the login names, passwords, and a number of other forms of private information that could be sent by way of the HTTPS protocol. When SourceDNA discovered the bug, it reported that among the companies that have kept the outdated code in at least one of their iOS apps were: Microsoft, Yahoo, Uber, and Citrix. This means that millions of Apple device users could have their privacy threatened if the wrong person should choose to attack.

This type of mobile security threat makes it possible for an attacker to take hold of data on the device.

This is because attacks through a “man in the middle” vulnerability opens the device up to a fake WiFi hotspot in order to be able to intercept data contained in devices that have connected to it. Typically, this sort of attack, which are also frequently called “coffee shop hacks”, isn’t possible because those artificial hotspots don’t have adequate security certificates. However, the bug that has been found in the iOS apps has stopped those applications for properly checking for those certificates.

The origin of the bug was in the AFNetworking open-source networking code which has been used in the development of thousands of different apps in order to allow them to connect to servers. The code’s 2.5.1 version was originally introduced in January and it had the bug within it which allowed the connections to occur without checking for HTTPS mobile security certificates. There has since been a corrected 2.5.2 code introduced, but there remain about 1,500 apps at the iOS App Store that have yet to update.

Once more, the geography test appears to have been failed by the device manufacturer.

Geography was clearly not one of the best classes that Apple Maps took in elementary school, as it has yet again revealed that it has placed certain locations on the world map in the wrong spots.

The mapping service has been especially creative when it came to the placement of certain Canadian cities.

For example, at the moment Apple Maps has relocated the largest city in Canada, Toronto, to the place that actually belongs to the country’s capital, Ottawa. Ottawa has been moved to Toronto’s old location on the edge of Lake Ontario. Though this has caused some to chuckle and others to roll their eyes, when they already know that these positions are not where the cities belong, it does bring to mind some of the disasters that were caused by a previous version of the app that led certain people into rather dangerous and unfortunate circumstances while following their iPhone GPS directions.

Apple Maps has also changed the position of a number of other cities and has misspelled others.

For instance, to continue with the examples on the Canadian map, the city of Edmonton was inaccurately placed to the west of Calgary, in the province Alberta. The apostrophe in the name of the city of St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland, was missing.

Since screen caps of these inaccurate maps from the mobile app started appearing on media sites across the internet, the offending maps have since been taken down. This was not before a new series of jabs have been made toward Apple, which now has a growing reputation for providing consumers with maps and directions that are riddled with errors.

These recent errors are, however, nowhere near the magnitude of the mistakes that were built into the original Apple Maps software that was launched in 2012 in order to replace Google Maps as the default service of that nature in iOS based devices. The problems were profound enough, at that time, that CEO Tim Cook rapidly found himself making an apology for the failures of the service and providing directions that would help the company’s mobile device users to be able to go back to using rival services.