If you like the Intego Mac Podcast, be sure to follow it on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, or Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Intego Mac Premium Bundle X9<\/b> is the ultimate protection and utility suite for your Mac. Download a free trial now at intego.com<\/a>, and use this link<\/a> for a special discount when you\u2019re ready to buy.<\/p>\n Get Apple security news delivered straight to your inbox, for free.<\/b> Intego\u2019s twice-monthly newsletter will keep you informed about Apple-related privacy and security, along with tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Mac or iPhone. Subscribe for free<\/a>\u2014no strings attached.<\/p>\n Voice Over 0:00 Kirk McElhearn 0:49 Josh Long 0:54 Kirk McElhearn 0:58 Josh Long 1:07 Kirk McElhearn 1:39 Josh Long 2:40 Kirk McElhearn 3:40 Josh Long 4:37 Kirk McElhearn 5:37 Josh Long 7:35 Kirk McElhearn 7:50 Josh Long 8:00 Kirk McElhearn 8:22 Josh Long 8:38 Kirk McElhearn 9:08 Josh Long 10:40 Kirk McElhearn 11:04 Voice Over 12:36 Kirk McElhearn 13:47 Josh Long 15:15 Kirk McElhearn 16:24 Josh Long 17:12 Kirk McElhearn 18:28 Josh Long 20:32 Kirk McElhearn 22:41 Josh Long 22:47 Kirk McElhearn 23:33 Josh Long 24:09 Kirk McElhearn 24:53 Josh Long 25:18 Kirk McElhearn 26:39 Josh Long 27:04 Kirk McElhearn 28:40 Josh Long 28:43 Voice Over 28:46 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\tKirk McElhearn<\/b> writes about Apple products and more on his blog Kirkville<\/a>.
Transcript of Intego Mac Podcast 382 <\/h3>\n
This is the Intego Mac podcast\u2014the voice of Mac security\u2014for Thursday, February 6, 2025. This week\u2019s Intego Mac Podcast security headlines include: A change may be coming in the way you\u2019ll be paying for Apple Care. Apple doesn\u2019t approve of an app that it has approved\u2014semantics are at the heart of a porn app problem. DeepSeek is this past week\u2019s big artificial intelligence story. What\u2019s different about this new AI contender? Does it secure your data? And Apple\u2019s new Invites app doesn\u2019t seem to be too inviting. Now here are the hosts of the Intego Mac podcast. Veteran Mac journalist Kirk McElhearn and Intego\u2019s chief security analyst, Josh Long. <\/p>\n
Good morning. Josh, how are you today?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m doing well. How are you, Kirk? <\/p>\nApple\u2019s iOS 18.3 update for iPhone 11 line<\/strong><\/h4>\n
I\u2019m doing fine. Okay. Last week we talked about the dot three updates, iOS 18 three, iPad OS 18 three. Mac OS 15 three, and we have a new dot three update, but only for one particular group of iPhone models.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right. Apple re released iOS 18.3 specifically for the iPhone 11 line and so that includes the Pro models and everything. We don\u2019t really know why. I guess it was some sort of bug fix that was specific to that year\u2019s iPhones, and we don\u2019t really know much beyond that, so not a big deal. I haven\u2019t really heard. Nobody\u2019s really talked about like, what exactly Apple fixed just for this one series of iPhones, but for some reason, Apple felt it was worth re releasing this update for those models.<\/p>\nIntroduction of Apple\u2019s Invites app<\/strong><\/h4>\n
We\u2019ve seen this in the past a few times when there\u2019s been a re release, because there\u2019s been a bug that affected a specific, I want to say, a specific model. But we\u2019re talking about, in this case, four models, the two sizes of the standard and the two sizes of the Pro. Could be hardware related, something to do with, you know, there was a bug with the update. So if you have an iPhone, 11 time to update it. This week, Apple released a new app, and there are so many things to say about this that where do we start? The app is called Invites, and it\u2019s an iPhone only app. You can download it on an iPad, but it displays an iPhone size, and you can create invites for parties. So let\u2019s say you\u2019re setting up a birthday party, you set yourself as organizer. You choose a background, you can add a picture, you invite guests, you can put a location, a time and a date and everything, and you can send it to people. And the problem is that this is just such a I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m trying to be polite to say that Apple\u2019s released one of the dumbest apps in years.<\/p>\n
I think the idea behind it isn\u2019t bad. I did see one editor talking about how they like how they no longer have to go to some third party, like Facebook if they want to send out an invitation to their friends to come to some event, which is, that\u2019s kind of nice, and you don\u2019t even necessarily have to be an iPhone user to receive these notifications. You may have to have an Apple account in order to RSVP. It looks like, but at the very least, you don\u2019t have to have an iPhone. So you can be on an Android device. You can get the link, and you can still RSVP to an event that somebody invited you to. There are some nice features you can, for example, have a photo album related to that event, so people can, I guess, submit photos that were taken at the event, and everyone can see them later. So there\u2019s some nice features like that, but there\u2019s a couple of odd or uncomfortable things with this as well. <\/p>\n
Well, Apple is touting this, and I\u2019m getting this from the Apple Newsroom site. So this is a press release from Apple. They talk about beautiful invitations to create and capture shared moments, and then they say Apple Intelligence makes invites even more fun. You could use image playground to produce original images using concepts, descriptions and people from their photo library. And I gotta tell you, this is just, I mean, we\u2019ve, we\u2019ve got one example. We\u2019re gonna link in the show notes to a video from MacRumors showing someone set up a an invite for a birthday party. And this text at the bottom that says, bit Hey, bentolin party, something like that. It\u2019s like your typical AI, bad spelling, right? That doesn\u2019t even look like normal letters. It\u2019s just embarrassing. I mean, this whole image playground thing is embarrassing, and we\u2019ve talked about this in the past, but this is even more embarrassing because you\u2019re sending this to people who might be on Android and who don\u2019t know how bad image playground is yet. <\/p>\n
Well, of course, that this happened to be the first image that was generated, right? It was supposed to say something like birthday party and, well, it got a bunch of gobbledy gook in there that doesn\u2019t even really look like English words. This is the kind of stuff that you would expect garbage AI to produce about two years ago. Right? As far as image generation. With AI, right? This is like, at least two years behind. You don\u2019t really see this level of awfulness with words generated in AI produced images. Nobody else does it this bad anymore, and Apple is still where everyone else was, like, two or almost three years ago. It\u2019s so bad, and you don\u2019t have to pick that image like you can keep going. And of course, the next image didn\u2019t have any text on it. And so he got some examples that he could use in this demonstration that he was making. But, but it\u2019s so bad. This is so awful. <\/p>\n
It looks like Apple sherlocked an app called Partiful. And if you go to the Partiful website, partiful.com I\u2019ll put a link in the show notes. They highlight that they were a 2024, finalist for App Store, best app, or whatever Apple\u2019s App awards are. And it\u2019s kind of funny that Apple saw this app. Oh, this is a really great app. Can we, like, whip up something like this and get it out in February? It looks so, I mean, with all the things that Apple\u2019s doing with AI, right, which are many of them, aren\u2019t hitting the target, they\u2019re coming out with something more with AI that, I mean, you can use the writing tools to make your invitation sound good. I mean, seriously, you\u2019re inviting people to a birthday party or something. There were a number of problems. Apparently, Android users can\u2019t view the Shared Photo Library. You can\u2019t have multiple people as event hosts. Now, imagine you\u2019re setting up a Christmas party at work. You might have two or three people, and you want to have them all, you know, getting the RSVPs, party planners, coordinators, right? Yeah, and right. You might have people in the company and outside, people who need to get this information if you\u2019re doing a large event, although, if you\u2019re doing a large event, you wouldn\u2019t want to do this. You\u2019d want to have some sort of a tool that\u2019s designed for managing a large event. One of the things that surprises me the most is that this is not a free app. Now, Apple has sold apps for a long time. They got Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro, and they\u2019ve sold other apps. This one you can only get if you subscribe to iCloud. Plus, I\u2019ll put a link in the show notes to some articles about iCloud. Plus on the Intego Mac security blog, it starts at 99 cents a month, for which you get to increase the pull through five gigabytes iCloud storage that Apple gives you, and you get 50 gigabytes. But there, this is the first app that they\u2019ve added to iCloud. Plus everything else is a feature more iCloud, storage, hide my email, hosting an email domain, et cetera. These are features, not separate apps, and this is an app that you can\u2019t get for free. You got to pay a buck a month if you want this. And this just feels so cheap and nickel and dimey.<\/p>\n
Yeah. I think that\u2019s fair well, especially considering how awful the AI integrations are with this app. They just released this app. Okay, I\u2019ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is gonna get better. I don\u2019t think the image generation part is gonna get better, though. <\/p>\n
No, no, no, hold on. Sorry, I wanna push back there. This is a $3 trillion company. You don\u2019t give them the benefit of the doubt when they\u2019ve released an app that\u2019s about as good as your average shareware app. <\/p>\n
Oh, well, it\u2019s worse, arguably, when you\u2019re talking about the AI part of it, I\u2019m just saying Apple released it this week. There was no beta period for it, which they usually do, you know, they usually will, will put something out there in beta. But they just kind of surprised everybody with this. So, you know, I mean, the things like, maybe this will get a little bit better, but, I mean, I\u2019m not going to use this. I haven\u2019t even downloaded this app yet.<\/p>\n
Well, I downloaded it because I have to try it and see how it works. And I sent an invitation for this podcast to you and our producer, and you didn\u2019t even reply because, I don\u2019t know, not because you didn\u2019t have the app. You would have gotten an email or a message. Did you get something? You never read your email. That\u2019s why.<\/p>\n
Actually, the reason why I didn\u2019t know what it was that you sent me is because I have Lockdown Mode on, and Lockdown Mode blocks these invites, so all I see is a URL. It just says HTTPS, colon, slash last www.icloud.com\/invite\/a, bunch of gobbledygook after that. It doesn\u2019t give me a preview. It doesn\u2019t tell me anything about what this is. It just is a URL that I can\u2019t even tap on to open it. So that\u2019s all I see on my iPhone.<\/p>\nApple Care Plus subscription changes<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, congratulations, Apple. I mean, you are an edge case with Lockdown Mode, but Okay, two more Apple stories before the break, and both of them are pretty short. Apple seems to be limiting Apple Care Plus to monthly subscriptions. This is a big deal. Apple only introduced monthly subscriptions a few years ago. It used to be that you would have to commit to two years up front for an iPhone and three years up front for a Mac. And it looks like you can still buy the longer subscriptions online. You can even buy a year and then renew a year. But in stores, apparently they\u2019re only selling them as subscription services. And of course, this costs a little bit more than if you buy it for a year or two years. I mean, this makes it look like it\u2019s less expensive. On the one hand, it also makes people keep paying after they\u2019ve gotten rid of that iPhone and they don\u2019t notice. They\u2019re still paying another five or six bucks a month for Apple Care Plus a lot of people don\u2019t realize that if you have a Apple Care Plus subscription, that\u2019s like multiple years and you\u2019ve sold your device, like you sell a Mac, you can contact Apple and they\u2019ll refund you for much of the remaining period in the Apple Care Plus subscription. To be fair, I would almost rather prefer the monthly subscriptions. But like when I buy computers for my work, I I\u2019m fine with the three years I save a little bit money. It was like 20% cheaper, 15% cheaper. Be aware that Apple has changed. That if you\u2019re used to buying subscriptions like that, I know you never buy Apple Care Plus for anything, Josh, because you\u2019re that guy.<\/p>\n
But, well, this, this is important to know, because I think there are a lot of people who do buy Apple Care Plus, so if you want that, make sure that you buy online. And so if you want to be able to prepay, like you have been able to in the past, like that, that\u2019s that\u2019s the big thing that\u2019s changed here, is no longer being able to add on the multi year option later on after purchase. <\/p>\nSix Colors Report Card on Apple products<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, I want to just a heads up to an article that Jason Snow has published on Six Colors. It\u2019s been 10 years now that he\u2019s been publishing his Six Colors report card. As he says, It\u2019s time for our annual look back on Apple\u2019s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. This is really interesting, because the people who are queried, I\u2019m one of the people who\u2019s queered in this or several dozen, are generally people who know enough about Apple to know all of their products. Maybe they don\u2019t use them all, like not everyone uses the vision pro there are questions about developer relations, which only affects developers, but you can see the trends in the way people think about particular Apple product lines. So there\u2019s a score for the Mac and there\u2019s a score for the iPhone and iPad, etc. One thing that\u2019s really striking is that the iPad score was going down gradually from 2017 and it hit 2.4 out of five in 2023 and last year went up to 3.5 that\u2019s a huge increase, partly because so many people who answered this survey have an iPad Pro with m4 processor, like I do, or an iPad Air with an m2 processor, both of which came out last year, and this was a big update for the iPad in 2024 it\u2019s worth a look to see that people who know a lot about Apple really like certain things and really dislike other things. All right, we\u2019re gonna take a break. When we come back, we\u2019re gonna have some more stories about AI and malware and more.<\/p>\n
Protecting your online security and privacy has never been more important than it is today. Intego has been proudly protecting Mac users for over 25 years. And our latest Mac protection suite includes the tools you need to stay protected. Intego\u2019s Mac Premium Bundle X9 includes Virus Barrier, the world\u2019s best Mac anti-malware protection, Net Barrier, powerful inbound and outbound firewall security, Personal Backup to keep your important files safe from ransomware. And much more to help protect, secure and organize your Mac. Download the free trial of Mac Premium Bundle X9 from intego.com today. When you\u2019re ready to buy, Intego Mac Podcast listeners can get a special discount by using the link in this episode\u2019s show notes at podcast.intego.com. That\u2019s podcast.intego.com and click on this episode to find the special discount link exclusively for Intego Mac Podcast listeners. Intego. World class protection and utility software for Mac users made by the Mac security experts. <\/p>\nDeepSeek AI and privacy concerns<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, it\u2019s time for our weekly look at AI, which we don\u2019t do every week, but this week, it\u2019s like, it\u2019s like, DeepSeek everywhere I see. We\u2019ve got several stories here about DeepSeek. So DeepSeek, if you\u2019ve been living in a cave and haven\u2019t heard about it is an AI tool that comes from China, which, according to the developers, cost like 110 or 1\/30 the cost of what open AI costs to develop. Open AI is complaining that deep sea stole some of their data. Tiny violin here, after deep sea copied everything on the internet, there\u2019s a couple of articles that we found that are talking about whether DeepSeek is sending your data to China. Now, TikTok is, while not completely banned, still not available on app stores in the US, because TikTok collects data and sells it to China. If you use the DeepSeek app, obviously, it\u2019s a Chinese app and it\u2019s going to Chinese servers. Wired has an article, deep seeks, popular AI app, is explicitly sending us data to China. I mean, Duh, of course it is. It\u2019s a Chinese app. Where do you think the data is going? Now, they could have data centers around the world, but they don\u2019t. Is DeepSeek lying to you about sending your data to China. You found a video on YouTube where actually. DeepSeek does lie about it, but you just have to assume that, just like Facebook collects all your data and sends it to Facebook service, DeepSeek is collecting all your data and sending it to DeepSeek service. So with any of these AI tools, you should not put any personal data into them.<\/p>\n
Right. And so there\u2019s a couple of things that I think are important to point out about this. First of all, there are a number of privacy concerns specific to the official DeepSeek app. My recommendation is not to use their app if you want to try out this new AI model. It\u2019s not bad, and it\u2019s at least partially open, so that other providers can give you access to the technology behind it without having to go through the app that is going to store all of your data that and all your queries in China. If that makes you uncomfortable, my recommendation is use perplexity, which has its own us hosted servers that it\u2019s running DeepSeek on. It also will avoid some of the filtering kind of things that the official DeepSeek app does because it\u2019s located in China, because it\u2019s run by a Chinese company, they\u2019re going to filter out certain queries and not allow you to ask certain questions, and you have more flexibility if you use perplexities implementation of it. So my advice is just avoid the DeepSeek official app altogether, and use perplexity instead if you really want to try out DeepSeek.<\/p>\n
Okay, what\u2019s interesting is that DeepSeek read your questions and it starts replying. And if you do this, like on the iPhone app, you\u2019ll see, if you ask about Tiananmen Square, for instance, you\u2019ll see it\u2019s going to start replying, and then all of a sudden, it cuts off with a screen saying, I can\u2019t answer this. And this suggests that the model itself has all the information to answer all the questions, that they\u2019ve copied everything from open AI and the web and everything else, but that they\u2019ve got a filter afterwards as the data is coming out, so not when your question goes in, but when the reply comes out. That cuts it off. And they cut off questions about Tiananmen Square with the Dalai Lama and Winnie the Pooh. If you don\u2019t know about Winnie the Pooh in China, you should look it up. It\u2019s kind of funny. We\u2019re also seeing malware pretending to be DeepSeek. I\u2019m I want to say I\u2019m not surprised. <\/p>\n
Yeah. I mean, anytime that anything is a hot news topic, people are going to be searching for it, and there\u2019s going to be somebody who\u2019s trying to exploit that, either to scam people or to infect them with malware. And sure enough, it didn\u2019t take long before we started seeing versions of atomic Mac OS dealer Amos, malware that is using the deep sea logo. And there is, this is really important. There is no official Mac app for DeepSeek. So if you are getting some thing that says that it\u2019s the DeepSeek app for Mac, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s probably malware, and so you should avoid it altogether. So beware of that. Remember that a lot of Amos malware comes up in search results. It\u2019ll even show up as a Google ad at the top of Google search results that looks like it might actually come from the real company. So you have to be really, really careful with this. Now I will also say that if you\u2019re using Intego Virus Barrier, that it does already detect these fake deep sea clones that are using Amos or other malware, some Python malware that\u2019s also out there, we are already detecting that with Intego Virus Barrier. <\/p>\nApple\u2019s Stance on EU Porn App<\/strong><\/h4>\n
You mentioned earlier that DeepSeek is open source, and this means that you can actually download DeepSeek. Maybe we\u2019ll talk about in the future, about how you can install this on a Mac and run it locally. This is why you mentioned perplexity, which is one of these AI tool aggregators that offers a number of different LLMs, large language models. This is why they can run it, and they advertise this as being on us servers, so it\u2019s not collecting data. There may be some other places where you can get access to it, but I think you just shouldn\u2019t use any of these AI apps at all. Use the browser. It\u2019s a lot safer. Okay, we have a story today that\u2019s going to veer into linguistics. We\u2019re going to link to a MacRumors article that says, Apple says it doesn\u2019t approve of EU porn app. Is a porn app called Hot Tub that was released for the iPhone in the European Union on the AltStore, which is this third party app store. And the graphic for this says, introducing Hot Tub, the first Apple approved porn app. Apple was not happy about that. Apple came out and said, we certainly do not approve this app and would never offer it in our app store. And the developer doubled down by showing App Store Connect, which is the app that developers use when they submit an app and to get authorizations. And it says the following app has been approved for distribution, Hot Tub, video player, they\u2019re both right and they\u2019re both wrong. So this process occurs during what\u2019s called notarization. When you create an app, you upload it to Apple, it verifies a few things, whether it\u2019s got malware, whether the developer has a valid certificate, et cetera. And then Apple sends back a version of the app. A bit of code inside to say that it\u2019s notarized, which is a really dumb word. It should just be validated or whatever, and the app is either approved or rejected. And so in this case, it is approved. Now Apple says, as I mentioned before, we certainly do not approve of this app. Approve of there is a big difference in meaning between approve and approve. Hub, so the old store people are, I don\u2019t know. They\u2019re kind of twisting things a little bit to say Apple approved. I think this is a bit bad faith what they\u2019re doing. But they\u2019re not entirely wrong. <\/p>\n
Yeah. So the way that AltStore works, it basically everything that you can find in their store, they list as quote, Apple hyphen approved. That\u2019s how they\u2019re referring to Apple\u2019s notarization process, right? So the exact wording is the following, app has been approved for distribution. That\u2019s Those are the words that Apple actually uses approved for distribution, which is very different from what Apple says. That AltStore is saying, by saying by implying, that they\u2019re approving of this app, right? So, so I get both perspectives, but in reality, really, AltStore should not be doing what they\u2019re doing, and saying that an app is Apple approved. Literally, every app that\u2019s in AltStore must be notarized, and so to say that it\u2019s Apple approved implies approved of and that\u2019s where Apple draws the line, and this whole like ethical line that AltStore has arguably crossed here, right? Because now you\u2019ve gone from this being an app distribution platform that is safe for anyone of all ages in any country whatever, in the EU, right? Again, this version of AltStore is only available in the EU specifically because of EU laws that require Apple to allow third party app stores. Okay? So now you might run into a problem. Let\u2019s say that you run a school IT department in the EU and maybe you had allowed AltStore to be offered on your devices that are that are in the hands of students. Well, now you\u2019re going to have to reconsider that, because now there\u2019s a whole category of potentially. Now there\u2019s just one app so far, but you can imagine that other developers you\u2019re going to want to get on board. And now AltStore is making porn apps available, and so there\u2019s this whole potential ethical problem now that AltStore is going to have to deal with, and they\u2019ve went, they went into this obviously, fully intentionally, and so that that\u2019s a whole problem. <\/p>\n
They wanted to get press. (Exactly.) The thing is, Josh, I\u2019ve got a porn app on my iPhone, so do you, it\u2019s called Safari.<\/p>\n
Safari, yeah. Well, that\u2019s the thing is, right? And I\u2019ve seen a lot of people playing that out too well. You can use any browser to access porn. Yes, okay, fair, that\u2019s true. However, the difference here is that Apple does allow you as a parent, right? If you\u2019ve got kids as part of your Apple family sharing group, you can set parental controls for your kids accounts, and so it does limit the amount of content like that that they can get through the Safari browser. That doesn\u2019t mean it completely blocks all of it, but at least it\u2019s Apple\u2019s best effort to block porn sites. So that\u2019s an important point, and why. This is very different from explicitly here have a porn app. <\/p>\n
Didn\u2019t Apple ban the Tumblr app a few years ago because they host porn. It looks like in late 2021 Apple decided that Tumblr was not appropriate for the App Store, and they pointed out, you know, review guidelines and that they wouldn\u2019t allow the app to be on the App Store. Now, this made a lot of noise at the time, and I think a lot of people have forgotten about it, but there is this line between an app that\u2019s totally designed for porn, like Hot Tub, and something like Tumblr or even Reddit or even Twitter. I mean, Twitter has a lot of porn on it if you look for it, so it\u2019s really hard for Apple to balance all of this. <\/p>\n
In the Wikipedia article titled censorship by Apple, there\u2019s, there\u2019s a section about Tumblr, and it says that, yeah, this was in in late 2018 it looks like November 2018 Apple removed the Tumblr app from the App Store due to their failure to filter child pornography. This is always going to be a problem with any kind of service that allows user generated content, right, even if that service explicitly forbids content like pornography, that doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re going to catch it before somebody notices that this content actually exists and reports the app and says that this whole app is now distributing pornography or whatever. <\/p>\nNetGear Wi-Fi Router vulnerabilities<\/strong><\/h4>\n
You know, what would have been better that Apple was forced to allow jailbreaking so the people who wanted to side load apps would have to go through. The process of jail breaking an iPhone, and it wouldn\u2019t be everyone. Everyone in the EU can download this AltStore and get access to apps like this, and we\u2019re going to see a lot more, I think. All right, it\u2019s Wi Fi Wednesday, isn\u2019t it? Because there is a new warning about Wi Fi router vulnerabilities, yet another one.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right. Netgear has six different models of Wi Fi 6 access points. Three of those are in their Nighthawk pro gaming line, and these access points have apparently vulnerabilities that allow a remote, unauthenticated threat actor to exploit them for remote code execution and authentication bypass in low complexity attacks that don\u2019t require user interaction. So this is about as serious as it gets. In other words, if your router is connected to the internet, and it happens to be one of these models that has these vulnerabilities, it may have already been hacked at this point. So Netgear, not surprisingly, strongly recommends that you download the latest firmware as soon as possible. So if you have a Netgear wireless access point or router, make sure that you check for updates and install them. If there are updates available, my recommendation actually would be reboot your router first, because a lot of times malware will not survive a reboot, and if this there\u2019s malware that\u2019s kind of running on your device, it\u2019s probably a good idea to just reboot it first, to clear out whatever infection might be live in memory, then install the latest update. <\/p>\niOS App Store screenshot-recording\/OCR malware<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, so we\u2019ve got one more malware story, and this just broke while we were recording actually, the Verge is reporting that iOS App Store apps have screenshot recording malware, and it looks like there are a couple of apps called we think, and any GPT that take screenshots and use OCR technology to extract text from Images, such as screenshots of crypto wallet passwords or recovery phrases. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a third app called come come, which is a Chinese food delivery app, and that\u2019s this is also available on iPhone and can be installed on Mac. Two of these apps actually can be installed on a Mac that\u2019s any GPT in come come. Be aware of of these apps, I would recommend that you don\u2019t download them. Is so far, these are the only three apps that have been discovered to use this technology. But optical character recognition is kind of old school technology at this point, like most of the time, a lot of people just use AI for this now, where you can just take a photograph of a page, and it will immediately just give you all the text from that page. OCR goes back many generations, way back to like scanners, and it was really poor technology back then, and it\u2019s gotten a lot better. So basically, the whole idea behind this malware, apparently, is that if you give it access to your photo library, which of course, you would have to choose to do. It can read the text out of any photos that you\u2019ve given it access to, and presumably, then it sends that off to the developer of the app. That\u2019s where the problem comes in, because you might have given access to photos that include things like maybe passwords or other sensitive information. So be aware of that. This is a good reminder that you should never give blanket access to all photos in your photo library. If an app requires access to your photos, give it individual access to photos so that you can choose which ones are allowed to be used in that app. <\/p>\n
Okay, that\u2019s enough for this week until next week. Josh, stay secure. <\/p>\n
All right, stay secure.<\/p>\n
Thanks for listening to the Intego Mac podcast. The voice of Mac security with your hosts, Kirk McElhearn and Josh Long. To get every weekly episode be sure to follow us in Apple podcasts or subscribe in your favorite podcast app, and if you can leave a rating, a like or a review. Links to topics and information mentioned in the podcast can be found in the show notes for the episode at podcast.intego.com. The Intego website is also where to find details on the full line of Intego security and utility software. intego.com.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9ffd73df6063179d7cdcb79109ff0a2d?s=60&d=mm&r=g\")
About Kirk McElhearn<\/h3>\n
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\nHe is co-host of the Intego Mac Podcast<\/a>, as well as several other podcasts<\/a>, and is a regular contributor to The Mac Security Blog, TidBITS, and several other websites and publications.
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\nKirk has written more than two dozen books, including Take Control books<\/a> about Apple’s media apps, Scrivener, and LaunchBar.
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\nFollow him on Twitter at @mcelhearn<\/a>.\t\t\t\t\t
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