Posts Tagged Apple
AVG prepares an Anti-Virus for Mac OS and iPhone
Posted by Mourad Ben Lakhoua in News, Software Security on August 11, 2009
The day when Apple was secured is gone .The increasing popularity of Apple not only attracts fans but also Hackers.After the recent reports of existing vulnerability in iPhones SMS and the keyboard MAC hacking method many security companies are working these days to provide a new ways to protects Apple users.
AVG the security software company announced on the CNET UK that they are preparing a new fully functional antivirus for OS X, and by the end of 2010 they will produce a real-time scanner for iPhone, however the increasing iPhone application development created a problem that the current smartphone does not allow applications to run on the background. So it is currently impossible for these embedded systems to scan in real time.
Well AVG is providing already a free product AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition and it is good to find AV companies focusing on the Mac community and games consoles.
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Vulnerability in Apple Mac Keyboards
Posted by Mourad Ben Lakhoua in News, Vulnerabilities on August 3, 2009
All keyboards include a processors and memory chip. Apple keyboard is not an exception. They contain an 8 KB flash memory and 256 bytes of RAM. K.Chen researcher at Georgia institute of Technology presented at the Black Hat conference how it is easy to install a malicious code directly into the apple keyboard.
Cracking Apple Keyboard RAM is not difficult with the help of HIDFirmwareUpdaterTool this tool provides an update to the keyboard firmware remotely. So the way to implement a keylogger in the firmware is by reverse engineering the HID, run the program set a stop point and than just copy the new malicious code (rootkit..) to the firmware image and in a few second the keyboard is compromised. Well at this point it is obviously impossible to detect this keylogger while it is embedded in the keyboard so still no keyboard AV 
and even formatting the PC will not help.
The case that K.Chen demonstrated was a simple keylogger which is able to reproduce the last five typed characters. Inside the keyboard due to the limitation in the storage just 1 KB but the interesting point that an infected website can remotely embed the rootkit in the keyboard.
After this presentation Apple announced that a utility for locking firmware should be available soon. The problem should be solved at both hardware level and at the level of firmware.
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Hackers break into Salma Hayek's MobileMe account
Posted by Mourad Ben Lakhoua in News on April 24, 2009
An anonymous post on the imageboard 4chan.org has provided MobileMe login details for Hollywood actress Salma Hayek, according to Electronic Pulp. The account apparently was not incredibly difficult to hack, carrying the address of shayek@mac.com. The intruders did not need her password, they simply used the “forgot password” option to access the contents.
Hayek’s secret question allegedly asks for a “favorite character,” which happens to be her own character from the 2002 film Frida. The birthday is also required, although the information is also easily obtainable.
It remains unknown if Apple plans to change the lost password requirements for MobileMe. For public figures, however, it is clearly unwise to protect an e-mail account with questions that can be easily answered after taking a quick look on Wikipedia.
[Source: MacNN]
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