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First Big Attack on Apple Store Infects Hundreds of iOS Apps

Apple had to remove over 300 apps from the app store.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

This post originally appeared on Business Insider

Hundreds of incredibly popular iOS apps have been affected by the first major attack on Apple’s App Store.

Apple started cleaning up the App Store on Sunday after several cybersecurity firms found that a malicious program called XcodeGhost had been embedded in hundreds of legitimate apps.

Reuters reports that some Chinese developers accidentally used a counterfeit version of Apple’s Xcode app-building software that contained malware that was able to infect iOS apps.

According to the California-based security firm Palo Alto Networks, the tainted version of Xcode had been downloaded from a Chinese server because doing so was faster than using Apple’s US servers.

Palo Alto Networks has published a list of some of the infected apps in Mandarin, which we have listed below.

  • WeChat
  • Didi Chuxing (developed by Uber’s biggest rival in China, Didi Kuaidi)
  • Angry Birds 2
  • NetEase
  • Micro Channel
  • IFlyTek input
  • Railway 12306 (the only official app used for buying train tickets in China)
  • The Kitchen
  • Card Safe
  • CITIC Bank move card space
  • China Unicom Mobile Office
  • High German map
  • Jane book
  • Eyes Wide
  • Lifesmart
  • Mara Mara
  • Medicine to force
  • Himalayan
  • Pocket billing
  • Flush
  • Quick asked the doctor
  • Lazy weekend
  • Microblogging camera
  • Watercress reading
  • CamScanner
  • CamCard (a very popular business-card reader)
  • SegmentFault
  • Stocks open class
  • Hot stock market
  • Three new board
  • The driver drops
  • OPlayer
  • Telephone attribution assistant
  • Marital bed
  • Poor tour
  • I called MT
  • I called MT 2
  • Freedom Battle

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