The IT Nerd

Apple likely thought that this issue where users who dared to switch away from iPhones could no longer send text messages to still loyal iDevice users was fixed with a website to deregister them. Well, not so fast. Apple is now facing a federal lawsuit over the issue:

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California said Apple must face plaintiff Adrienne Moore’s claim that the message blocking interfered with her contract with Verizon Wireless for wireless service, which she kept after switching in April to a Samsung Galaxy S5 from an iPhone 4.

Moore, who seeks class-action status and unspecified damages, claimed that Apple failed to disclose how its iOS 5 software operating system would obstruct the delivery of “countless” messages from other Apple device users if iPhone users switched to non-Apple devices.

In a Monday night decision, Koh said Moore deserved a chance to show Apple disrupted her wireless service contract and violated a California unfair competition law, by blocking messages meant for her.

“Plaintiff does not have to allege an absolute right to receive every text message in order to allege that Apple’s intentional acts have caused an actual breach or disruption of the contractual relationship,” Koh wrote.

My take? It took Apple months to fix this. So they cannot be shocked that someone sued them and is so far making headway. Apple will likely settle this out of court. But I would love to see the plaintiff reject such a settlement attempt and send a message to Apple that they need to be held responsible for their actions.

You might remember that earlier this year, it was found that people who switched from iPhones but kept their phone number ran into a nasty bug that lost messages from other iPhone or iDevice users that are incorrectly delivered to their inactive iPhone. Apple has finally come up with a fix for this. All you need to do is to surf to this site and Enter the phone number you want to deregister from iMessage. Apple will automagically remove the number from iMessage and send you a confirmation code. Early reports say that this works. But I do have one question. This problem appeared in late May. What took Apple so long to come up with a resolution?

If you think that iOS and OS X are secure, think again. There are a pair of attacks out there that will change your mind in a hurry.

The first attack is called “Wirelurker” and it’s been infecting both Mac OS and iOS systems over the course of the past six months. Here’s what the researchers who discovered it had to say:

WireLurker monitors any iOS device connected via USB with an infected OS X computer and installs downloaded third-party applications or automatically generated malicious applications onto the device, regardless of whether it is jailbroken. This is the reason we call it “wire lurker”. Researchers have demonstrated similar methods to attack non-jailbroken devices before; however, this malware combines a number of techniques to successfully realize a new brand of threat to all iOS devices. 

WireLurker exhibits complex code structure, multiple component versions, file hiding, code obfuscation and customized encryption to thwart anti-reversing. In this whitepaper, we explain how WireLurker is delivered, the details of its malware progression, and specifics on its operation.

Scary stuff. Once installed, WireLurker can collect information from iOS devices like contacts and iMessages, and it’s able to request updates from attackers.It’s largely in China, but who’s to say that it won’t spread. Apple is trying to stop it from spreading and had this to say to iMore:

“We are aware of malicious software available from a download site aimed at users in China,” an Apple spokesperson told iMore, “and we’ve blocked the identified apps to prevent them from launching. As always, we recommend that users download and install software from trusted sources.”

I assume that they are blocking it using XProtect which is a rudimentary way for OS X to block suspicious files.

The second threat is called “Masque Attack” and this one only affects iOS devices. It tries to get users to install an app outside of the iOS App Store, by clicking a phishing link in a text message or email. Once they do, it installs malware over top of a legitimate app by using the same use the same bundle identifier (a unique identifying number that apps have). This way it  makes the threat completely undetectable.

Security company FireEye discovered this threat and here’s why you should be scared:

Masque Attacks can pose much bigger threats than WireLurker. Masque Attacks can replace authentic apps,such as banking and email apps, using attacker’s malware through the Internet. That means the attacker can steal user’s banking credentials by replacing an authentic banking app with an malware that has identical UI. Surprisingly, the malware can even access the original app’s local data, which wasn’t removed when the original app was replaced. These data may contain cached emails, or even login-tokens which the malware can use to log into the user’s account directly.

The attack works on iOS 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 8.0, 8.1, and the 8.1.1 beta. That means that Apple has some serious work to do to combat this.

So what can you do to protect yourself? In the case of “Masque Attack”, do not not install apps from third-party sources other than the Apple App Store. You should also avoid clicking on “install” popups in SMS messages or third-party websites, and avoid apps/uninstalling apps that give an “Untrusted App Developer” alert. In the case of “Wirelurker”, Users should not download and run Mac apps or games from third-parry app stores, download sites, or other untrusted sources. You should also not jailbreak your iDevice. If your iDevice comes from your company, you should avoid unknown enterprise provisioning profiles. Another tip is that you should avoid pairing your iDevice with unknown computers or charging with chargers from untrusted or unknown sources.

I spent the weekend researching why I might have had three drives fail on my Mid-2012 MacBook Pro. The most recent being this past Saturday. The answer is, that it appears to be a pervasive quality issue with Apple. i cite as evidence these threads from the Apple Discussion boards and I will provide a few quotes:

I have had 2 new hard drives put into my MacBook Pro ( mid 2012 ) since July this year but the third one has just failed again.

I collected my MacBook on Saturday ( 7th September ) and I didn’t have it 24 hours before I saw the same problem happening again.

The machine will constantly beachball on me and then freeze up completely, I end up getting the folder with a question mark in it.

I’d tried to reinstall the OS but it cannot find a disk to install it onto.

Does anyone know what’s causing this constant problem?

And:

Unfortunately, it’s incredible to say my Macbook Pro Hard Drive Cable required 3 times of replacements within 2 years. The first time of mal-function happen in the warranty period, so Authorized Apple Office replaced it. 6 months later, the bad “symptom” happen again with question mark folder on boot up screen and recovered after replacement of used hard drive cable. Six months later, question mark folder boot screen happen again and disappear after install a good HDD cable from another Macbook Pro.

There are other threads with similar reports that I didn’t decide to post. But if you spend some time with the search engine of your choice, you’ll find them easily.

On top of that, I also noted that 2011 MacBook Pro users have been plagued by repeated graphic card failures as evidenced by this massive thread on the Apple Discussion boards. This has led to a lawsuit as Apple has failed to properly address this issue.

Clearly, Apple’s quality has slipped and clearly they aren’t addressing their users concerns. Instead, it appears that they are staying mum on these issues. That’s disappointing as it really seams that Apple is not focused creating quality computers that their users can rely on. After all it used to be that you pay more with Apple to get a better product. Clearly that’s no longer the case. Thus I am strongly re-evaluating where my next computer will come from.

Oh, if there’s a class action lawsuit regarding repeated drive failures in MacBook Pro’s, let me know. I’d love to sign up.