13 ms·
A Popular Mac App That Sent Users' Browsing History to China Has Been Removed
- rjvir 8y agoSecurity for the normal user is a nice benefit of having an App Store.
- ISL 8y agoI'm pretty sure I get a substantial fraction of that sort of benefit from Debian's apt repository.
- gene91 8y agoThe intersection between these two sets intersect is likely pretty small: "normal user", "people using Debian"
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoThat seems better in theory than practice - Apple didn't detect the behavior (though it violates their dev TOS), I would think the users whose browsing data was exfiltrated will not feel especially secure.
- scarface74 8y agoI don’t expect Apple to catch behavior. What I would expect is that an app on the App Store never be given permission to a users whole home directory - only a sandboxed area for the app to store files. If a user wants to open files somewhere else, the app should open a file picker where the user explicitly allows access to that file.
- macintux 8y agoIt apparently has to ask for the rights to open the user's files, and frankly, as a user if I paid for anti-malware I'd give it those permissions.
- wlesieutre 8y agoI assume that's what happened here. The app says "I need permission for your home directory" and the user selects the home directory from a file picker, giving access to everything in it. DaisyDisk's App Store version has similar sandboxing limitations and a similar workaround. It's an app designed to scan your whole hard drive and show you how your space is used, but by default it doesn't have permission to access the drive at all. So to run the first scan you have to indicate to the OS that you want the application to be able to read your hard drive, IIRC by dragging and dropping the volume onto DaisyDisk. For an antimalware app, of course users are going to grant it permissions. There's no point in buying that if you're going to keep it in a sandbox where it can't look at your system.
- scarface74 8y agoI would expect something more like iOS. Where you can only choose a file not a folder. True that will limit what types of apps can be distributed on the Mac App Store. But I am okay with that. On the Mac, they can distribute their app outside the store. I would love to be able to tell my mom. Don’t trust any app outside of the store and make it hard to download outside of the store.
- macintux 8y agoThat's pretty close to what they have today. Apple started enforcing sandbox restrictions in apps distributed via the Mac App Store, and opening an app downloaded directly from the web takes more effort than it used to.
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoTo be fair, while I stand by my criticism of their lack of oversight, having an App Store model does make a fix much easier to roll out. If this was a piece of malware that was just installed manually, it'd take an OS security update to address, which presumably wouldn't happen in hours (or even days).
- taobility 8y agoWould all non-US Chrome users scare that all their browsing data been sent back to US?
- codezero 8y agoThis sounds like a wild false equivalence.
- eastendguy 8y agoSure it would. If it is sent back, please link to some proof.
- fzzzy 8y agoUh, isn’t it widely known that every character you type in the address bar in chrome is sent to google? They wouldn’t be able to give you autocomplete results otherwise.
- Karunamon 8y agoThis is on a toggle switch that requires affirmative consent to enable the first time. So no, not the same thing.
- fzzzy 8y agoAre you talking about “Help make Google Chrome better by automatically sending usage statistics and crash reports to Google”? Because that’s not what I am talking about. Even if you turn that off, autocomplete still works in the location bar. Type “h”, it offers to complete “Home Depot”, “Hotmail”, “Huntington Bank”, “Hurricane Florence”, and “Hungry Howies”. It does that by sending the character “h” to the google servers and getting back a list of results.
- drb91 8y agoWell, it’s a little less weird for chrome to have “legit” access to the browsing data. Why would AV software ever need that information?
- cecja 8y agoIf there is an APP called anti malware or anti spyware or mega antivirus there is a 90% chance that it is just the opposite.
- JoshMnem 8y agoIt's probably worse than 90%. The major anti-virus programs appear to track your browsing history too. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/avg-privacy-policy-browser-search-data https://www.wired.co.uk/article/avg-privacy-policy-browser-s... https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/antivirus-tracking-youd-surprised-sends/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/antivirus-tracking-youd-surpri...
- drb91 8y agoWhy are these even allowed on the store? Surely the sandbox prevents process inspection.
- waterside81 8y agoAdware Doctor is the app
- sgt 8y agoI would really hope very few Mac users in their right mind would install "Adware Doctor".
- saagarjha 8y agoUnfortunately many do, since they come from Windows and have learned that they need something like this to "keep their Mac clean".
- reaperducer 8y agoYep. I had a co-worker the other day ask me to recommend a program to defrag his Mac's hard drive. I asked him if his Mac was a Windows box from the 1990's.
- TheForumTroll 8y agoThis has nothing to do with users coming from Windows. Mac users aren't smarter than users of other OS's. Windows 10 with a walled garden like Apples is safer than a Mac.
- saagarjha 8y agoThis isn't a matter of Mac users being "smarter"–it's just that most Windows users are accustomed to running antivirus software on their computers, and when they come over to macOS they tend to bring this over to macOS.
- frou_dh 8y agoIt is sandboxed from filesystem access, but as soon as it is launched, it asks the user for permission to access their home directory. Really this is just an indictment of old-school massive deep tree file organisation, and of Unix file permission being too coarse-grained for what are effectively single-user computers.
- comboy 8y agoI wonder if there's any chance of improvement of that under linux. Only chrome needs access to my chrome data directory. It also doesn't usually need access to anything outside it. There's not that much use of solid security preventing apps from gaining the root access when all my sensitive data is accessible from my user.
- ComodoHacker 8y agoLinux has AppArmor and other tools to solve that. What it lacks are tons of paid man-hours to develop, test and maintain templates for popular apps.
- drb91 8y agoIs there a decent UX for apparmor controls?
- EvilTerran 8y agoQubes OS (https://www.qubes-os.org/ https://www.qubes-os.org/) seems relevant: that sandboxes every application into its own VM. It's a hell of a brute-force approach to application isolation, but I guess it's the most robust strategy available.
- saagarjha 8y ago> Only chrome needs access to my chrome data directory. This is changing in macOS Mojave so that databases for things such as email and contacts are inaccessible except through the proper APIs, which present a prompt asking for access.
- 8y ago
- Illniyar 8y agoI just love the apple response mail to the guy who disclosed this to them: "We have forwarded your feedback to the appropriate team. Someone from that team will investigate and follow up as needed with the developer. Because we can only share communications about an app with its developer, you will not receive updates about this matter." It's the perfect email, they can do whatever they want, and they have an excuse why they don't need to account for it - they could let the app do whatever it want, demand it to change it's behavior or throw it out, but the one who spent considerable time researching this would never know.
- pkaye 8y agoThat is why people need to use the court of public opinion in such matters.
- vkou 8y agoThe court of public opinion is fickle, loves to conduct witch hunts, is easily swayed by lies, and is mostly just a reflection of the biases of the participants.
- fredsir 8y agoWhat court isn't? Even a single real judge is biased, and will judge the same case differently according to what time of the day it is, or if their favorite sports-team is on a winning or losing strike[1]. The power of the court of public opinion is, that everything (hopefully) gets revealed instead of being confined to the opinion of a few select. [1]: This is mentioned in Hello World by Hannah Fry[2] [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38212157-hello-world https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38212157-hello-world
- cabaalis 8y agoI can't get the video links in the tweet [1] to open? Unless I fat-fingered all 3 of them. Either the guy doesn't want to be accused of not following proper disclosure procedures, or he was somehow asked to remove them? [1] https://twitter.com/privacyis1st/status/1038103142460743681 https://twitter.com/privacyis1st/status/1038103142460743681
- paulcarroty 8y agoES File Explorer - one of the MOST popular Android apps - always connected to 3 Chinese servers. Shitload of proofs and logs and ... nobody cares.
- mtgx 8y ago> nobody cares Are you saying everyone is aware about those things? I for one never use a Chinese app or an app that was bought by a Chinese company ever again (sorry, Opera). But I doubt 99% of the users even realize who owns these apps.
- TheForumTroll 8y agoIs it for privacy reasons or racist reasons? If it is for privacy you don't use US made apps either I hope.
- aogl 8y agoDo you have more information on this?
- kbenson 8y agoYuck. I installed that a while back to ease dealing with some local files on the phone for some testing, and it's been sitting on there for a while. Uninstalled, since regardless of whether it's true now, it could be true in the future, and an app not used is both an app not needed and a security hole waiting to happen at this point.
- MrEfficiency 8y agoI cant remember why I uninstalled, but the UI changed and I couldnt do something I used to be able to. I think it was navigating videos and being able to hit 'Next' in-video. Whatever the case it broke and I found a new file explorer.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- stevenwoo 8y ago
- rodorgas 8y ago> The next release of macOS, macOS Mojave, will protect content like Safari History or cookies from apps, even those to which users have granted access to their home directory. What about other browsers?
- erikpukinskis 8y agoOwning an operating system means you get special treatment for your apps.
- abrowne 8y agoJust be thankful you can still use other browsers on Mac!
- derefr 8y agoNope. See here for a better summary of the feature: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/332673/what-and-how-does-macos-mojave-implement-to-restrict-applications-access-to-pers https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/332673/what-and-ho... From my own experimentation in Terminal.app in Mojave, ~/Library/Safari is unreadable without granting permission, but I can read everything under ~/Library/Application Support/Google just fine. Probably Apple should expose a way for applications to register their data to be included in the protected data set.
- space00 8y agoI think an app which can block all these rogue sites would be welcome
- simonbh 8y agoLook into pi-hole
- jordache 8y agowhy the f didn't apple catch this behavior during review?
- rubicon33 8y agoBecause they're too focussed on catching whether or not your app uses their In App Payment system with 0 possible links to other payment methods.
- ilamont 8y agoIts listing on the Mac App Store is accompanied a majority of lavishly positive five-star reviews. https://threatpost.com/top-macos-app-exfiltrates-browser-histories-behind-users-backs/137247/ https://threatpost.com/top-macos-app-exfiltrates-browser-his... Can we talk about this problem? Amazon gets a lot of attention for questionable reviews but Apple hardly gets any backlash from consumers or the media. I note on the relevant Apple page for developers (https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/system-capabilities/ratings-and-reviews/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...) that the following guidance is given: Ratings and reviews help people make informed decisions when considering whether to try out your app. Positive ratings and reviews can mean more downloads of your app, and customer feedback gives you insight into real world usage that helps direct future development efforts. Delivering a great overall experience is the best way to encourage positive ratings and reviews, but it’s also important to ask for feedback at appropriate times. Keep these considerations in mind when asking people to rate your app. Ask for a rating only after the user has demonstrated engagement with your app. For example, prompt the user upon the completion of a game level or productivity task. Nowhere on that page are there any prohibitions against asking for five-star or positive reviews, and indeed, it's quite easy to find examples of high-profile apps asking for five star reviews, including Amazon (see example on the bottom of this page: http://leanmedia.org/amazon-removes-reviewer-emails-profiles/ http://leanmedia.org/amazon-removes-reviewer-emails-profiles...). It's not hard to see the damage done by inflated or bogus user reviews: The unwary are more likely to download them, as is the case for this top-ranking utility sending browser history back to China.
- walrus01 8y agoSearch for "app store review farm" and you'll see how easy it is to fake reviews. Apple's system is sufficiently advanced to prevent people from doing it in a fully automated way, so it's done with the manual version of click farming. Basically the same idea as paying somebody to farm gold in a MMORPG. Trust nothing. https://www.cultofmac.com/311171/crazy-iphone-rig-shows-chinese-workers-manipulate-app-store-rankings/ https://www.cultofmac.com/311171/crazy-iphone-rig-shows-chin...
- 8y ago
- bangonkeyboard 8y agoWhich should I be most irritated by: 1) Apple's app review is nigh useless security theater. 2) The App Store is easily manipulated with fake reviews to boost malware. 3) Apple's approved channels for vulnerability reporting are low priority, opaque, and unresponsive. 4) Apple acts (and swiftly) only upon media attention.
- kbenson 8y ago> 1) Apple's app review is nigh useless security theater. It's not useless, it serves the vital purpose of allowing Apple to strong-arm companies when Apple wants to compete with them. :/ e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17831188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17831188
- MrEfficiency 8y agoDont forget you need to buy an apple, and the yearly membership, and have to constantly update when code is intentionally broken. As a small time dev with limited resources, Apple is my least favorite company to deal with.
- greglindahl 8y agoAs a consumer, I'm happy with the rapid pace of change in Apple's software. Yes, that raises the minimum needed to keep an Apple app working.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- TheForumTroll 8y agoI have never heard Apple praised for rapid pace of change in their software but there's a first for everything! In fact IMHO they lack behind everyone else and live by taking what others do, brush it up a tad and sell it as the best new amazing feature ever made.
- apeace 8y agoMore information: https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x37.html https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x37.html
- eddieplan9 8y agoIt's the sad state of affair in "trusted" App Stores. Little Snitch is the first app I install on every machine. I look forward to a day when network access becomes a permission a sandbox app asks for.
- drb91 8y agoSadly, I don’t see Apple making any moves in this direction, probably because advertising is an extremely popular form of revenue these days. It’d be rather awkward explaining why they enable these controls on the computer but they don’t allow them on iOS.
- scarface74 8y agoYou mean like Apple not having a built in content blocking framework for Safari? https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/ContentBlocker.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ge...
- drb91 8y agoIt doesn't apply to native apps.... IIRC they've even removed ad-blocking vpn software recently: https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/200903/apple-no-longer-accepting-vpn-based-ad-blockers-to-app-store-report-says https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/200903/apple-no-l...
- scarface74 8y agoThere are so many bad actors when it comes to VPN software ad blockers it wasn’t worth the risk. VPNs are allowed and are natively supported, but I wouldn’t trust a random third party VPN. If it were that important to me on iOS, I would host my own VPN server and just use the native support. https://www.imore.com/how-configure-vpn-access-your-iphone-or-ipad https://www.imore.com/how-configure-vpn-access-your-iphone-o... But honestly, I hate ad supported software. Either give me away to remove ads via an in app purchase or I’ll just delete the app. I bought an iOS device partially because I prefer the simple transaction model of giving Apple money and they give me stuff without subsidizing the purchase price with ads and invasive tracking.
- phendrenad2 8y agoThank you to all the security researchers out there reporting this stuff. Keep the bad press flowing, so apple doesn’t get too lazy and let even more of these through...
- makecheck 8y agoApple is a terrible choice for gatekeeper because they stand to benefit from any app becoming popular, regardless of why the app has become popular. Gambling-inducing gem scams and apps with fake reviews do just fine and earn Apple 30% at the expense of users so Apple certainly loses money in the short term if they refuse those apps entirely. Apple also gains when they can brag on stage about how many bazillion apps there are on Apple platforms; scam apps are generally quite numerous (probably because it’s easier to come up with a bunch of crappy apps than a single good one) so they’re sort-of-OK with having lots of “apps” that no one should really be installing. A really tiny list of outstanding apps would be hard to sell on stage. The only real impact on Apple’s bottom line would be for the entire store to become so infested, relative to competitors, that people jump ship and stop buying expensive Apple hardware out of frustration. Apple is at least observant enough to avoid that; they’ve kept their store clearly better than competing stores but none of them is necessarily a great experience. I strongly suspect that the convenience of payment processing is the primary reason for developers to put up with Apple’s too-random screening systems. If Apple were required to open up app payment processing to any number of payment services, and if they were relying on trusted 3rd parties to certify apps (perhaps based on category), we would see a very different app experience. Distributing reviews to different authorities would also be hard. For example, if you had “security experts” handle screening for apps in a certain category, somebody could just write a sneaky app in a different, weakly-reviewed category to make it through the net into the store. Apple would almost have to create secure subsets of their entire API in line with app store categories, e.g. “you can’t even use network-access APIs for apps in this category” would be a very useful restriction. The other nice thing about this is that Apple would finally be free to not need certain expertise in-house; e.g. if you don’t have enough good people on staff who are qualified to assess the security risks of an app but you can find a trusted 3rd party that can, you can hire them to be that trusted authority and we can stop assuming that Apple is the best at handling everything by itself.