Creepy " fruit fly" surveillance malware hits American apple macs

[MindWars]

Law enforcement agents are now investigating what appears to be a slice of malicious code that’s been hitting Mac users in recent weeks and appears to be purely for targeted surveillance, though it’s unclear whether it’s for perverse reasons, or if it’s government-related. Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA analyst who now does research for cybersecurity firm Synack, says he saw around 400 infections, but there’s likely many more as he only had access to a handful of servers used to control the malware, dubbed FruitFly. “I likely only saw a limited percentage of the total number of victims,” Wardle said.

Creepy 'FruitFly' Surveillance Malware Hits American Apple Macs

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Apple getting attacked is rare, the hacker is probably a pos Gov. official or someone the FEDS hired to send out malware.

 

[waltky]

Malware Puts Virtually All Phones, Computers at Risk...

Security Flaws Put Virtually All Phones, Computers at Risk, Researchers Say
January 03, 2018 — Security researchers on Wednesday disclosed a set of security flaws that they said could let hackers steal sensitive information from nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and ARM Holdings.

One of the bugs is specific to Intel but another affects laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, tablets and internet servers alike. Intel and ARM insisted that the issue was not a design flaw, but it will require users to download a patch and update their operating system to fix. "Phones, PCs — everything is going to have some impact, but it'll vary from product to product," Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in an interview with CNBC Wednesday afternoon. Researchers with Alphabet Inc.'s Google Project Zero, in conjunction with academic and industry researchers from several countries, discovered two flaws. The first, called Meltdown, affects Intel chips and lets hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer's memory, potentially letting hackers read a computer's memory and steal passwords.

Advanced Micro Devices offices are shown in Sunnyvale, Calif.​

The second, called Spectre, affects chips from Intel, AMD and ARM and lets hackers potentially trick otherwise error-free applications into giving up secret information. The researchers said Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. had patches ready for users for desktop computers affected by Meltdown. Microsoft declined to comment and Apple did not immediately return requests for comment. Daniel Gruss, one of the researchers at Graz University of Technology in Austria who discovered Meltdown, said in an interview with Reuters that the flaw was "probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found."

Specter a long-term issue

Gruss said Meltdown was the more serious problem in the short term but could be decisively stopped with software patches. Specter, the broader bug that applies to nearly all computing devices, is harder for hackers to take advantage of but less easily patched and will be a bigger problem in the long term, he said. Speaking on CNBC, Intel's Krzanich said Google researchers told Intel of the flaws "a while ago" and that Intel had been testing fixes that device makers who use its chips will push out next week. Before the problems became public, Google on its blog said Intel and others planned to disclose the issues on January 9. The flaws were first reported by The Register, a tech publication. It also reported that the updates to fix the problems could cause Intel chips to operate 5 percent to 30 percent more slowly.

The logo of Intel Corp. is set up at its assembly and test facility at Saigon High Tech Park, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.​

Intel denied that the patches would bog down computers based on Intel chips. "Intel has begun providing software and firmware updates to mitigate these exploits," Intel said in a statement. "Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time." ARM spokesman Phil Hughes said that patches had already been shared with the companies' partners, which include many smartphone manufacturers. "This method only works if a certain type of malicious code is already running on a device and could at worst result in small pieces of data being accessed from privileged memory," Hughes said in an email. AMD chips are also affected by at least one variant of a set of security flaws but that can be patched with a software update. The company said it believes there "is near zero risk to AMD products at this time."

Google's report

See also:

Apple to Issue Fix for iPhones, Macs at Risk From Chip Flaw
January 04, 2018 - Apple Inc. will release a patch for the Safari web browser on its iPhones, iPads and Macs within days, it said Thursday, after major chipmakers disclosed flaws that leave nearly every modern computing device vulnerable to hackers.

On Wednesday, Alphabet Inc.'s Google and other security researchers disclosed two major chip flaws, one called Meltdown affecting only Intel Corp. chips and one called Spectre affecting nearly all computer chips made in the last decade. The news sparked a sell-off in Intel's stock as investors tried to gauge the costs to the chipmaker.

In a statement on its website, Apple said all Mac and iOS devices were affected by both Meltdown and Spectre. But the most recent operating system updates for Mac computers, Apple TVs, iPhones and iPads protect users against the Meltdown attack and do not slow down the devices, it added. Meltdown does not affect the Apple Watch.

Macs and iOS devices are vulnerable to Spectre attacks through code that can run in web browsers. Apple said it would issue a patch to its Safari web browser for those devices "in the coming days."

Apple to Issue Fix for iPhones, Macs at Risk From Chip Flaw

Related:

Businesses Delay Patch, Fear Fix Will Be Worse Than Chip Flaw
January 05, 2018 - Chances that a fix to a major microchip security flaw may slow down or crash some computer systems are leading some businesses to hold off installing software patches, fearing the cure may be worse than the original problem.

Researchers this week revealed security problems with chips from Intel Corp and many of its rivals, sending businesses, governments and consumers scrambling to understand the extent of the threat and the cost of fixes. Rather than rushing to put on patches, a costly and time-intensive endeavor for major systems, some businesses are testing the fix, leaving their machines vulnerable. "If you start applying patches across your whole fleet without doing proper testing, you could cause systems to crash, essentially putting all of your employees out of work," said Ben Johnson, co-founder of cyber-security startup Obsidian.

Flaws not 'critical'

Banks and other financial institutions spent much of the week studying the vulnerabilities, said Greg Temm, chief information risk officer with the Financial Services Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, an industry group that shares data on emerging cyber threats. The flaws affect virtually all computers and mobile devices, but are not considered "critical" because there is no evidence that hackers have figured out how to exploit them, said Temm, whose group works with many of the world's largest banks. "It's like getting a diagnosis of high blood pressure, but not having a cardiac arrest," Temm said. "We're taking it seriously, but it's not something that is killing us."

Testing the patches

Banks are testing the patches to see if they slow operations and, if so, what changes need to be made, Temm said. For instance, computers could be added to networks to make up for the lack of processor speed in individual machines, he added. Some popular antivirus software programs are incompatible with the software updates, causing desktop and laptop computers to freeze up and show a "blue screen of death," researcher Johnson said.

The Microsoft logo in Los Angeles, California​

Antivirus software makers responded by rolling out fixes to make their products compatible with the updated operating systems, he said. In a blog posting Friday, Microsoft Corp said it would only offer security patches to Windows customers whose antivirus software suppliers had confirmed with Microsoft that the patch would not crash the customer's machine. "If you have not been offered the security update, you may be running incompatible antivirus software, and you should consult the software vendor," Microsoft advised in the blog post.

Government agencies also are watching. The Ohio Attorney General's office is monitoring the situation, a spokesman said by email. "Intel continues to believe that the performance impact of these updates is highly workload-dependent and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time," the world's No. 1 chipmaker said on Thursday in a release.

No significant patch impact

 

[Marion Morrison]

I am sooo not affected by this!