Vratislav Holub In this regular column, every day we look at the most interesting news that revolves around the California company Apple. Here we focus exclusively on the main events and selected (interesting) speculations. So if you are interested in current events and want to be informed about the apple world, definitely spend a few minutes on the following paragraphs.
It could be interest you
Apple Silicon is the target of the first hackers
Last week, we informed you about the detection of the first ever malware that was optimized to run natively on the Apple Silicon platform, that is, on Macs with the M1 chip. Of course, the new platform brings with it new challenges, which hackers seem to be trying to respond to as quickly as possible. During the weekend, another virus called Silver Sparrow was discovered. As the name suggests, this malware is supposed to use JavaScript API installation files to execute malicious commands. Anyway, after a week of testing, when security experts from Red Canary examined the entire virus, they couldn't find the exact threat and what the malware was supposed to do.
He commented on the whole situation to MacRumors and Apple magazine, which reported on the cancellation of the certificates of the developer accounts that were behind the signing of the given packages. Thanks to this, it is theoretically impossible to infect other devices. The Cupertino company continued to repeat the findings of the mentioned experts from Red Canary - even the experts did not find any evidence that the malware would damage or affect the Macs in question.
iCloud contained a significant security flaw
We'll stay with security for a while. Unfortunately, nothing is so-called flawless, which of course also applies to Apple products and services. An interesting bug plaguing iCloud has now been shared by security expert Vishal Bharad through his blog. The aforementioned error allowed the attacker to place, for example, malware or a dangerous script in the form of a so-called XSS attack or cross-site scripting directly on the website of the iCloud service.
An XSS attack works by having an attacker somehow "inject" malicious code into a dynamic web application, bypassing security. The file then appears to come from a verified and trusted user. According to expert Bharad, the entire vulnerability consisted in creating a Pages or Keynote document through the iCloud internet environment, where it was necessary to select an XSS code as the name. After then sharing with another user and making a change, saving it and clicking the button Browse All Versions the aforementioned code would then be executed. The whole problem should be fixed by now. Bharad reported the situation in August 2020, while in October 2020 he was paid a reward for reporting a security error in the amount of 5 thousand dollars, i.e. less than 107 thousand crowns.
Apple surpassed Samsung in phone sales in the fourth quarter of 2020
In October 2020, we saw the presentation of the brand new iPhone 12 generation, which again brought a number of great improvements. The new Apple phones specifically boast OLED displays even in the case of standard models, a significantly more powerful Apple A14 Bionic chip, more durable Ceramic Shield glass, night mode on all lenses and support for 5G networks. These models are now among the absolute top, which is also proven by their extremely successful sales. According to the latest company data Gartner in addition, Apple managed to conquer a great milestone. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the Cupertino giant surpassed Samsung in phone sales and thus became the best-selling phone manufacturer for the given time period. In addition, according to data from the same company, Apple has not boasted this title since 2016.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, 80 million new iPhones were reportedly sold. People heard mainly about the support of 5G networks and the improved photo system, which made them buy the latest apple model. In addition, in a year-over-year comparison, this is an additional 10 million iPhones sold, or a 15% increase, while sales of rival Samsung are now down by about 8 million units, which is about an 11,8% year-over-year decrease.
