Three people that were suspected to have ties with the development of the Wirelurker virus, a malware that originated from China which was targeted towards iOS and OS X devices, have been arrested by the local authorities. Apple has also stifled the spread of the virus after it affected an estimated 350,000 users.
A post by the Chinese police on Weibo detailed the capture of the three suspects in Beijing after being tipped off by Qihoo 360 technology, a China-based security company. The police have also effectively shut down the site that the virus originated from.
Although recently made kown by Palo Alto Networks, Wirelurker has been circulating through OS X and iOS devices since June of this year. The virus’s main method of transmission was through the Maiyadi App Store, a third-party app store for OS X applications. After the malware was brought to light, Apple responded to the virus by blocking infected apps from launching and advised users to only download applications from trusted sources.
This does bring up the question on just exactly how secure are our devices are, as it seems even a company that is as established as Apple is prone to attacks such as this. That being said, it’s reassuring to see that Apple was quick to resolve the issue even though it has warned users against downloading applications from untrusted sources.
[Source: MacRumours]
