IPhone Malware Expected Soon, Kaspersky Reports

iPhone and iPad users could soon be the targets of malware, according to a study by Kaspersky.

Apple recently went to the internet security company, asking them to assess threats to the techno-giant’s products.

Kaspersky CTO Nikolay Grebennikov spoke exclusively with Computing, stating:

“Our experience tells us that in the near future, perhaps in a year or so, we will see the first malware targeting iOS.”

He went on to say:

“Our first investigations show Apple doesn’t pay enough attention to security. For example, Oracle closed a vulnerability in Java, which was a target for a major botnet several months ago…Apple blocked Oracle from updating Java on Mac OS, and they perform all the updates themselves. They only released the patch a few weeks ago — two or three months after the Oracle patch. That’s far too long.”

According to Huffington Post, Kaspersky has also noted that:

“They [Apple] will understand very soon that they have the same problems Microsoft had 10 or 12 years ago. They will have to make changes in terms of the cycle of updates and so on and will be forced to invest more into their security audits for the software.”

Kaspersky also told CBR that:

“I think they are ten years behind Microsoft in terms of security. For many years I’ve been saying that from a security point of view there is no big difference between Mac and Windows. It’s always been possible to develop Mac malware, but this one was a bit different. For example it was asking questions about being installed on the system and, using vulnerabilities, it was able to get to the user mode without any alarms.”

While iPhones and iPads have not been heavily targeted yet, as hackers are focusing on the Android-based phones currently, Kaspersky believes that the iOS software will not remain virus-free for long.