Following a
string of disclosures from big tech and media companies that could point to a
larger Chinese threat, Apple on Tuesday became the latest to admit that its
internal computers had been hacked — and by the same malware malfeasance that
got inside Facebook, which, according to Reuters, all trace back to China. An
Apple statement, via AllthingsD, points to the same Java script malware that infected
Facebook laptops as being the culprit with the attack on some Macs at Apple:
Apple has
identified malware which infected a limited number of Mac systems through a
vulnerability in the Java plug-in for browsers. The malware was employed in an
attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for
software developers. We identified a small number of systems within Apple that
were infected and isolated them from our network.
No user
information was compromised in the breach, as with the Facebook hack. Also like
the Facebook hack, there's no official sign that the tech-company hacks are
connected to a larger Chinese cyber-espionage campaign against the U.S.
government, its companies, its infrastructure, and many organizations — a campaign
that has now been tied to the Chinese People's Liberation Army. But even the
most secretive and high-security American technology companies aren't safe, and
now everyone's coming clean.
The
break-in sounds almost exactly the same as those disclosed by Facebook and
other in various hacking reports these days. "[Hackers] staged a
sophisticated attack by infiltrating its employees' laptops," explains
Reuters. In fact, many of the most sophisticated hacks tend to be the result of
so-called "spear-phishing" campaigns, from the Defense Department on
down. While that sounds like a relatively easy thing to avoid, these hackers
must send some seriously convincing emails to fool the techies at Apple and
Facebook — and probably Twitter.
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Like all
the other recently hacked companies, Apple says it is working with law
enforcement agencies to defeat the hacker threat. Though, considering the
extent of these hacks, that sounds relatively useless. As for Apple users, the
company plans to release some sort of software to protect individual phones and
tablets from the malicious software used in the breach. Per the statement:
"To protect Mac users that have installed Java, today we are releasing an
updated Java malware removal tool that will check Mac systems and remove this
malware if found."
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