iPHONE CAUGHT BY GOOGLE CRACKERS ALSO ATTACKED ANDROID AND WINDOWS USERS

Google Project Zero experts find sites attacked iPhone users for more than two years with 14 vulnerabilities combined in five exploit chains. Compromise occurred without any user involvement, it was enough just to go for a malicious resource.

Researchers did not specify what kind of sites they were but noted that the attacks were not targeted and applied to all iOS users who visited resources (and they totaled thousands of visitors per week). Exploiting vulnerabilities, cybercriminals installed spyware on user's devices that did not survive a reboot but could steal victim's personal data, including instant messengers, contacts, photos, and device location information in real-time.

As a Forbes report, Google experts do not write about the real extent of the campaign they discovered. So, the media refer to their own sources and explain that it seems to be a classic watering hole (“watering hole”) attack.

In addition, it is reported that the campaign was aimed not only at iOS users; unknown attackers used similar tactics against Android and Windows users, that is, we are talking about a very large-scale operation. It is not known which payloads were delivered to users of other operating systems.