Apple Releases Global Update After Mideast Spyware Discovery

Apple Releases Global Update After Mideast Spyware Discovery

  • Aug 26, 2016

A botched attempt to break into the iPhone of an Arab activist using an “espionage software” has triggered a global upgrade of security on Apple’s mobile operating system.

Two different companies, San Francisco-based Lookout smartphone security company and internet watchdog group Citizen Lab, released reports that cited the NSO Group, an Israeli company with a reputation for flying under the radar, as the owner of the spyware that took advantage of three previously undetected weaknesses in the iPhone. Simply put, this programming would give a hacker the ability to take complete control of the device.

Mike Murry, of Lookout, said the spyware was the “most sophisticated” spyware he’s seen on the market.

The spyware would give a hacker complete access to an iPhone with the tap of a finger, a trick so coveted in the world of cyber spying that a programmer said he’d pay $1 million bounty to whoever could figure out a way to do it.

Apple said in a statement that it had fixed the vulnerability immediately after learning about it.

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