Apple Blocks ‘WireLurker’ Malware

It looks that Apple has responded rather swiftly to the Wirelurker malware that we reported on earlier yesterday, where Cupertino intends to take the necessary precautionary measures to prevent the spread of this malware. How will they go about it? For starters, Apple will block apps that carry the WireLurker malware, which is a malware that can transmit from a Mac to iOS devices via a USB connection, in order to prevent such infected applications from launching.

Apple did release a statement to The Wall Street Journal earlier this morning, citing that the malicious software is “available from a download site aimed at users in China.” So, their step to combat the potentially deadly spread of this malware would be to block such suspicious applications, not to mention preventing them from actually being launched on a Mac.

Right now, more than 465 infected applications have already been discovered over on the Chinese Maiyadi App Store for Mac OS X systems. Do bear in mind that this is a very different beast from that of the official Mac App Store, which happens to be controlled as well as curated by Apple themselves, and hence, it carries a far more stringent, if I may say, approval process. The entire Wirelurker malware incident goes to underline how important it is to know the source of where you’re downloading something from.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones, Computers
Tags: Malware, wirelurker