“In 2018, the state of Mac malware has evolved, with more and more threats targeting these so-called impervious machines,” Thomas Reed writes for Malwarebytes Labs. “We have already seen four new Mac threats appear. The first of these, OSX.MaMi, was discovered on our forums by someone who had had his DNS settings changed and was unable to change them back.
“The malware that was discovered on his system acted to change these settings and ensure that they remained changed,” Reed writes. “Additionally, it installed a new trusted root certificate in the keychain.”
“These two actions are highly dangerous. By redirecting the computer’s DNS lookups to a malicious server, the hackers behind this malware could direct traffic to legitimate sites, such as bank sites, Amazon, and Apple’s iCloud/Apple ID services, to malicious phishing sites,” Reed writes. “The addition of a new certificate could be used to perform a “man-in-the-middle” attack, making these phishing sites appear to be legitimate.”
“Apple’s macOS includes some good security features that are helpful, but they are easily bypassed by new malware, and they don’t address the adware and PUP problem at all. macOS cannot be considered bulletproof,” Reed writes. “We know that not everyone wants to run antivirus software on their Macs, but if you’re looking for additional protection, Malwarebytes for Mac can help.”
Much more in the full article here.
“The Nikkei Asian Review wrote on January 29 and February 20 that Apple was ‘slashing’ production of the iPhone X from 40 million to 20 million units for the March quarter,” Chuck Jones writes for Forbes. “These made it appear that the iPhone’s March quarter demand was declining more than it usually does from the December quarter and that the X’s sales were disappointing.”
“When you work through the numbers and compare them to previous March quarter’s new products, it shows that 20 million X’s is more in-line with historical results,” Jones writes. “The fall of 2017 was the first time that Apple launched three new iPhones. Overall the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus did well and helped contribute to iPhone unit sales increasing over 6% year over year on a weekly basis.”
“CIRP, or the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, estimates that the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus accounted for 24% and 17% of U.S. iPhone sales in the December quarter,” Jones writes. “The bottom line is that the iPhone X was never going to sell 40 million X’s in the March quarter and 20 million is pretty much in-line with historical trends. And even at 20 million X’s Apple should still dominate the smartphone profit pool.”
Read more in the full article here.
“A two-year-old boy in Shanghai disabled his mother’s iPhone for the equivalent of 47 years after playing with it and repeatedly entering the wrong passcode, according to a Chinese media report,” Kristin Huang reports for The South China Morning Post.
“The incident happened in January after the phone was given to the child to watch educational videos online, the news website Kankanews.com said,” Huang reports. “The mother returned home one day and when she checked the phone found it had been disabled for 25 million minutes by pressing keys repeatedly when the handset requested the passcode be inputted, according to the article. Each time the wrong keys were pressed the phone was disabled for a period of time, the report said.”
“A phone technician at an Apple store in Shanghai was quoted as saying that the woman could either wait years to try to input her passcode again or wipe the contents of the handset clean and then reinstall files,” Huang reports. “‘I couldn’t really wait for 47 years and tell my grandchild it was your father’s mistake,’ the woman was quoted as saying.”
Read more in the full article here.
