Home UsersNewsSecurityStudents

Porn and gambling apps are also exploiting Apple’s Enterprise Certificate

The equivalent of entering through the back passage

PORN AND GAMBLING APPS are spraying themselves over iOS by exploiting Apple’s Enterprise Certificate program, TechCrunch has discovered in an examination.

The publication discovered a dozen hardcore porn-peddling apps and 12 real-money gambling apps – all a huge no-no on iOS – that have managed to get past the App Store’s digital bouncers by pretending to be enterprise apps for internal business usage.

By merely completing an online kind and paying $299 to Apple, designers can have their apps certified as part of Apple’s business program, which permits them to be successfully uploaded onto iOS without needing to go through the App Store. Such a program is designed to allow businesses to run internal enterprise apps on iOS.

But betting app designers appear to be utilizing this to create phony certificates using false service ID numbers, or sometimes legitimate ones got off the black market, to get on the program. From there, naughty designers can plow apps and services that would usually get started the App Store, which Apple tries to keep fairly family-friendly, onto iOS.

“These apps either provided streaming or pay-per-view hardcore porn, or allowed users to deposit, win, and withdraw real money– all of which would be forbidden if the apps were dispersed through the App Store,” explained TechCrunch’s investigation.


Some of the apps that have exploited the program have been purged by Apple. But there’s no insight in why Apple’s Enterprise Certificate program has actually been so lapse in spotting dodgy apps and designers attempting to rear-end their method into iOS.

The whole concerns comes soon after TechCrunch found that Google and Facebook were exploiting the program to sneak information analysing tools into iOS.

At the time, Apple promoted a rather dim view of such activity: “Any designer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to customers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we performed in this case to protect our users and their data.”

But it looks like it needs to police its program a bit more through provided the apps that have actually bypassed the App Store.

“Developers that abuse our business certificates remain in offense of the Apple Developer Enterprise Program Agreement and will have their certificates ended, and if appropriate, they will be gotten rid of from our Developer Program totally,” an Apple representative told TechCrunch. “We are constantly assessing the cases of misuse and are prepared to take immediate action.”

That still does not shed much light on how Apple let this situation take place, however then Cupertino isn’t constantly upcoming with details specifically that which might paint it in a negative light.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/12/apple-porn-gambling-apps/

Sending
User Review
0 (0 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

Daniel Zimmermann

Daniel Zimmermann has been writing on security and malware subjects for many years and has been working in the security industry for over 10 years. Daniel was educated at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany and currently lives in New York.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sending

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button