Greg's Corner

Apple users have two new threats to deal with

If you’re a fan of the Apple ecosystem because ‘they don’t get viruses’ you may want to rethink that reasoning. While still not receiving as many threats as Windows machines Apple devices are still vulnerable to glitches and attacks. Two of those issues recently made the news.

The first, and less damaging of the two threats, is a glitch in iOS that can cause you’re iPhone to crash. If someone sends you a text with the white flag emoji, the number zero, and the rainbow emoji, it will crash your iPhone if it is running iOS 10. You don’t even have to read the text before it freezes your phone. Luckily, this glitch does not cause any lasting damage and your iPhone should restart.

The second problem is a piece of malware called Fruitfly that is targeting Mac computers. If your Mac is infected a bad actor can take control of your webcam and can take screenshots of whatever you’re working on. This malware seems to be only targeting a specific industry and may not have spread into consumer machines just yet. However, Apple has issued an update to OSX to fix the exploit.

No matter whether you use Mac or Windows, iOS or Android, you still have to be concerned about your device’s security.