WireLurker: The New Frontier Of Viruses On The Mac And iOS

Researchers at the Palo Alto Networks, have published an interesting research about WireLurker a new family of malware that would have the ability to infect both Mac and iOS over the last 6 months. According to research, WireLurker would only infected users in China, but it could begin a new era of virus attacks on desktop and mobile platforms.

WireLurker would be able to attack iOS devices using the USB cable OS X. Once inside iOS, infected applications as they do traditional viruses, but this would be the first virus capable of installing third party app on devices without jailbreak through a sort of "corporate network".

WireLurker would be used on 467 OS X app from the App Store Maiyadi which is an app store for Mac third parties in China. The apps have been downloaded 356 104 times having a chance to infect hundreds of thousands of users.

WireLurker once inside the computer searches for iOS devices connected via USB cable by installing third-party applications within the devices. WireLurker have a very complex structure, diversified in several versions, with obfuscated code and encrypted. Once installed WireLurker may use information such as contacts and iMessage. However, it would still be under development its ultimate purpose, then it would be a virus "without purpose" at the moment, but that could potentially cause many problems.

The best recommendation to avoid these problems is to not download applications from third-party stores. Apple offers its users several tools to avoid downloading suspicious, the best is to use the Mac App Store apps that are backed by Apple itself.