On the heels of Facebook’s announcement Friday that its machines were infected by a sophisticated malware attack, Reuters is reporting that the same hackers have also attacked Apple computers. No data was compromised, according to the company.
While it was to be expected that more companies might be targeted by the malware, since Facebook announced that it was not alone in this attack, it is surprising that Apple, a company with very little history of cybersecurity breaches, has been hit.
The announcement of the breach follows a report Tuesday morning from The New York Times revealing that a large number of Chinese cyberattacks on the U.S. can be traced back to a single building operated by the military in Shanghai. This is leading some to believe that World War III is already on our doorstep, being fought through cyberwarfare on the U.S.’s most influential, powerful and profitable institutions.
(See also Is There Nothing We Can Do To Stop Chinese Hackers?)
Reuters also mentioned the President’s State of the Union address last week, in which Obama issued an executive order to better prepare the nation’s infrastructure for events like this. A follow-up report from Reuters says, “The Obama administration has repeatedly taken up its concerns about Chinese cyber-theft at the highest levels of the Chinese government.”
Apple says to expect a software tool later today to protect against the malicious software being used in the attack.
While all this talk of large-scale security breaches and WWIII cyberwarfare has many people feeling a little unsafe online, not all cybersecurity issues have such serious consequences. On Monday, a lighthearted hack of Burger King’s Twitter account revealed that the company had been sold to McDonald’s.
UPDATE: The New York Times has reported the source of the malware – the mobile developer site iPhoneDevSDK. This should go without saying, but do not visit this site unless you want to open up your computer to an onslaught of malicious malware.
Image courtesy of pio3 / Shutterstock.