The top iPhone and iPad apps on App Store

App Store Official Charts for the week ending Nov. 4, 2013:

Top Paid iPhone Apps:

1. "Duck Dynasty: Battle of the Beards", A&E Television Networks Mobile

2. "Fantastical 2: Calendars and Reminders Done Right", Flexibits Inc.

3. "Angry Birds Star Wars II", Rovio Entertainment Ltd

4. "Minecraft - Pocket Edition", Mojang

5. "Heads Up!", Warner Bros.

6. "LIMBO Game", Playdead

7. "Plague Inc.", Ndemic Creations

8. "Afterlight", Simon Filip

9. "Oldify 2", Apptly LLC

10. "Free Music Download Pro - Mp3 Downloader", ASPS Apps

Top Free iPhone Apps:

1. "Bitstrips", Bitstrips

2. "Emoji for iOS 7 - Free Emojis Keyboard, Emoticons Pics, Stickers, Smiley Icons and Fonts for Texts, Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp Messages", Tap Nation

3. "NinJump Rooftops", Backflip Studios

4. "Deer Hunter 2014", Glu Games Inc.

5. "YouTube", Google, Inc.

6. "Facebook", Facebook, Inc.

7. "Crazy Shave - Free games", Bluebear Technologies Ltd.

8. "Candy Crush Saga", King.com Limited

9. "BBM", BlackBerry Limited

10. "Snapchat", Snapchat, Inc.

Top Paid iPad Apps:

1. "Minecraft - Pocket Edition", Mojang

2. "Duck Dynasty: Battle of the Beards HD", A&E Television Networks Mobile

3. "Angry Birds Star Wars II", Rovio Entertainment Ltd

4. "LIMBO Game", Playdead

5. "Pixel Gun 3D - Block World Pocket Survival Shooter with Skins Maker for minecraft (PC edition) & Multiplayer", Alex Krasnov

6. "Toca Mini", Toca Boca AB

7. "iMovie", Apple

8. "Pages", Apple

9. "Lep's World 3", nerByte GmbH

10. "Photon Flash Player for iPad - Flash Video & Games plus Private Web Browser", Appsverse Inc.

Top Free iPad Apps:

1. "Bitstrips", Bitstrips

2. "GarageBand", Apple

3. "NinJump Rooftops", Backflip Studios

4. "Calculator for iPad Free", International Travel Weather Calculator

5. "Dots: A Game About Connecting", Betaworks One

6. "YouTube", Google, Inc.

7. "The Great Jitters: Pudding Panic Reloaded HD", kunst-stoff GmbH

8. "DEAD TRIGGER 2", MADFINGER Games, a.s.

9. "Candy Crush Saga", King.comLimited

10. "Deer Hunter 2014", Glu Games Inc.

Source: News Day

Malicious apps smuggled into Apple app store

n the history of Apple iOS, only a handful of malicious apps have been discovered

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have published a paper on what they call "Jekyll apps", which have the outward apprearance of being benign but contain vulnerabilities that allow them to be exploited remotely.

In their investigation, the team, led by Tielei Wang, developed a proof-of-concept Jekyll app and successfully published it to the Apple app store. The app worked by taking the binary code that had already been digitally signed by Apple and rearranging it in a way that gave it new and malicious behaviours.

"The key idea is to make the apps remotely exploitable and subsequently introduce malicious control flows by rearranging signed code," the researchers state in their paper.

"Since the new control flows do not exist during the app review process, such apps, namely Jekyll apps, can stay undetected when reviewed and easily obtain Apple’s approval."

Once their Jekyll app had been accepted to the app store, the researchers were able to remotely launch attacks on a controlled group of devices that had installed the app.

Despite running inside the iOS sandbox, tha app was able to perform many malicious tasks, such as stealthily posting tweets, taking photos, stealing device identity information, sending email and SMS, attacking other apps, and even exploiting kernel vulnerabilities.

"Such a seemingly benign app can pass the app review because it neither violates any rules imposed by Apple nor contains functional malice. However, whan a victim downloads and runs the app, attackers can remotely exploit the planted vulnerabilities and in turn assemble the gadgets to accomplish various malicious tasks."

In the paper, the researchers set out possible counter-measures that Apple could take to mitigate this threat. In particular, they recommend introducing more advanced runtime monitoring mechanisms that can limit Jekyll apps' capability to perform malicious applications.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told MIT Technology Review that developers have made changes to the iOS operating system in response to issues identified in the paper. However, it remains unclear if the vulnerabilities have been completely fixed.

iOS is not the only mobile phone platform vulnerable to this type of attack. Earlier this month, researchers from antivirus provider Trend Micro discovered an exploit that allows hackers to inject malicious code into legitimate Android apps without invalidating their digital signature.

Read More.....