Consumer Affairs Victoria says App Store contains malware Consumer Affairs Victoria has claimed Apple's App Store houses "counterfeit or 'cloned' apps" that "look like real apps but don't have the same kind of security as those made by established software programmers" and "can expose personal data to malware or predatory, virus-like software which can be used to steal personal …
Shock, Horror - you mean that Apple computers get viruses despite all the marketing that claims they don't? The App Store contains dodgy and potentially dangerous apps - despite the marketing that claims it doesn't?
Bear in mind the Apple marketing machine has successfully managed to rewrite history and convince a large number of people that touchscreens and smartphones didn't exist before the first iPhone. Excuse me if I take everything the Apple Marketing machine says with a large handful of salt....
Why go to the trouble of trying to get malware into the App store and sandboxed devices when iTunes is a much larger and easier target.
Hundreds of viruses trojans and key loggers are readily available, particularly for older Windows platforms like XP where people may have outdated anti viruses and no anti-trojan software.
Apple has also been increasing security in iTunes recently, presumably due to increased fraud.
"The consumer advocate then makes the claim that predatory software lurks in the App Store" [citation needed]
It's possible, of course. A clever malware author can probably slip a malicious application past Apple's screening, with enough work.
But until someone actually produces an example, I will tend to suspect that the iTunes IDs are being obtained in other ways. I generally receive one to two emails a month claiming to be from Apple and announcing that my iTunes account has been locked pending me clicking on a dodgy link to "confirm my identity." It's certainly plausible that the examples of compromised iTunes accounts are more down to this and other plain-Jane, garden-variety phishing than to a hypothetical malicious app in the app store.
Like I said, it's possible that some malicious app exists out there...but claims like this require some sort of evidence if they're to be taken seriously.
There's a lot of speculation in that Consumer Affairs Victoria report, but zero proof about these so called "cloned / counterfeit Apps" do actually exist.
As Franklin stated, there are emails doing rounds claiming to be from iTunes asking you to reset your iTunes account password. Anyone with half a brain wouldn't reply to these, but some people do, thus providing the sharks with valid iTunes login credentials that "could" be sold on or more than likely used to purchase wares and Apps from the iTunes Store.
Most tech savvy consumers would take this CAV warning with a pinch of salt, however the paranoid among society would avoid iTunes App Store like a plague and echo the warning to people they know.
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