Categories: NewsTechnology

A single image can be used to steal your iOS and Mac passwords

A Cisco researcher has just found out that hackers can sneak into iOS or Mac devices, gaining control over the internal storage and passwords by using just a single image file. Using this vulnerability, hackers can even control Macs, which don’t support sandboxing, remotely.

Being referred to as “Apple Remote Code Execution With Image Files”, this vulnerability can be exploited by hackers to land into iOS, Mac OS X, tvOS, and watchOS systems using The Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). A TIFF image can specially be crafted so as to contain a Malware (Malicious Software). The image then can be sent by any means to the victim or it can just be placed on a web page to which the victim could be directed.

Tyler Bohan of Cisco Talos, mentions on his blog, “When rendered by applications that use the Image I/O API, a specially crafted TIFF image file can be used to create a heap-based buffer overflow and ultimately achieve remote code execution on vulnerable systems and devices.”

In order to protect themselves, users need to update their operating systems to the latest versions (i.e iOS 9.3.3, El Capitan 10.11.6, tvOS 9.2.2 and watchOS 2.2.2).

TIFF is a useful format, particularly famous among photographers and graphic designers who use it to save the image without losing any of the image’s data. This specialty causes the size to get relatively bigger.

Image — Business Insider

Sponsored
Muneeb Ahmad

I love to talk about global tech-happenings, startups, industry, education and economy. Get in touch: muneeb@techjuice.pk.

Share
Published by
Muneeb Ahmad

Recent Posts

Telecom Operators to Automatically Restore SIMs for Tax Filers

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has introduced a comprehensive mechanism for blocking and unblocking…

42 mins ago

Trump’s Influence Fuels Bitcoin to Cross $100,000

Bitcoin broke the $100,000 mark for the first time on Thursday, driven by Trump's crypto-friendly…

1 hour ago

PSX Hits New Heights, Surges by 1,800 Points to Cross 97,000

On Thursday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) 100 Index surged by 1,781.94 points, or 1.86%,…

2 hours ago

Pakistan’s IT Minister Defends Internet Restrictions: Here’s All We Know!

Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Minister of State for IT and Telecom, made it clear on Thursday…

3 hours ago

PayPal Resolves Global Outage Impacting Thousands

PayPal, the global payment processing company, announced on Friday that it had successfully resolved a…

4 hours ago

7,300 Teaching Interns Hired Across Punjab

LAHORE: Punjab government colleges have completed the recruitment of 7,354 teaching interns. The Higher Education…

4 hours ago