Apple Removes Apps After Major Malware Attack on App Store

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — US technology giant Apple on Monday removed from its distribution platform App Store a number of legitimate applications for its devices as they had been infected by malware in a massive hacker attack, Apple spokeswoman Christine Monaghan said.

Earlier, some cybersecurity companies reported that a malicious program was embedded in a number of popular programs in the App Store after hackers counterfeited Apple's software Xcode for creating applications. The malicious code, dubbed XcodeGhost, enabled hackers to access the private account information of users who had installed the infected applications on their devices.

“We’ve removed the apps from the app store that we know have been created with this counterfeit software. We are working with the developers to make sure they’re using the proper version of Xcode to rebuild their apps,” Monaghan said, as quoted by The Guardian newspaper.

Apple reported that it was the first major attack by hackers on applications distributed through App Store.

XcodeGhost infected hundreds of Chinese-developed applications, including the car-hailing Didi Kuaidi and popular mobile messenger Wechat, used by some 600 million people.