A new Apple scam has been discovered. Wednesday, Apr. 22, a security firm called ZecOps has revealed a scamming device implanted on the iPhone Mail app on most users. Security researchers said that hackers have already used the scam to steal personal data from some iPhone users. Worse, once this scamming device gets to your smartphone, it will soon have access to your data and remotely download malware on your device.
NEW SCAM! Researchers caught new iPhone security alert that you should know
As first reported via Apple Insider, San Francisco-based security company ZecOps has revealed on its blog post that its team discovered two vulnerability issues on the default iPhone mail app on both iOS and iPadOS.
The team dropped the news on Wednesday, Apr. 22, but clarified that the bug was already discovered last year. However, it was only recently when they found out that six organizations were the targeted victims of the scam since 2018.
Zuk Avraham, the company's chief executive, explains how the scam works on the iPhone mail app. First, once you've been exposed to the said vulnerabilities, the hackers will run remote code on your Apple's MobileMail and Mailid processes in iOS 12 and iOS 13 through the use of a specially crafted email.
If you're using an iPhone issued back in 2012 until recent devices, you're advised to disable the iPhone mail app first. It was said in the report that the vulnerabilities exist at least since iOS 6 or when iPhone 5 was first released.
Once the email gets sent to your iPhone, the attacker is now free to control the device's memory and remotely run malicious malware that could steal data from your phone. Worse, you might not know this until someone notifies you that a third party uses your data for other crimes.
"Based on ZecOps Research and Threat Intelligence, we surmise with high confidence that these vulnerabilities - in particular, the remote heap overflow - are widely exploited in the wild in targeted attacks by an advanced threat operator(s)," said on the blog post.
Attackers target European journalist and US-based Fortune 500
Avraham also entails on the blog post that the attackers of the iPhone mail scam were not primarily focused on regular American citizens. The security firm explains that the first attack of the scam was directly pointed on one of the staff at the famous United States-based Fortune 500 company and a journalist in Europe-- which the company did not identify.
Interestingly, the hackers were also not identified by the firm. However, it was mentioned that one attacker could be a nation-state threat operator.
For now, it is advised for all iPhone users to disable their iPhone mail app or download the latest iOS update to ensure everyone's protection against scams.
Apple has not yet released a statement.
