New “Masque Attack” Malware For iOS Discovered

Over the years many have been under the impression that iOS is a safe platform as not much malware targets it. Instead most malwares seem to target Android due to it being an open system. However if this year has taught us, no platform is safe. It wasn’t too long ago that a malware called Wirelurker was revealed, and now it looks like another iOS malware has been discovered.

According to a recent report from FireEye, they claim that a new iOS malware called Masque Attacks has been discovered. This malware is said to be capable of replacing apps with fake apps in order to steal credentials, which sounds like a more advanced version of phishing, just with apps and not emails.

They go on to state that what makes this malware so dangerous is the fact that it can even access the original app’s local data. “Surprisingly, the malware can even access the original app’s local data, which wasn’t removed when the original app was replaced. These data may contain cached emails, or even login-tokens which the malware can use to log into the user’s account directly.”

FireEye notes that this Masque Attack malware for iOS will affect devices running iOS 7.1.1 through the latest build which is iOS 8.1 at the moment. It has also been noted that it affects iOS 8.1.1 which is currently still in beta and is being tested by developers. Apple has yet to comment on the latest find but hopefully it will be addressed before iOS 8.1.1 is released.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: iOS, Malware