What you need to know
- A cybersecurity expert believes Apple hacks will increase in the future
- Claims Apple is now a "top target for hackers seeking money or power"
- Says Apple's global reach makes hacking more enticing.
Cybersecurity expert Alex Heid, chief research and development officer at SecurityScorecard, has told Business Insider he expects hacks targeting Apple will increase in the future.
According to the report, one of the main reasons that Apple is becoming a more enticing target for hackers is its reach:
"Apple has a much larger market penetration now than it did before," he said. "There's more Apple out there."
The report goes on to state:
According to Heid, while Apple's reach makes the company itself a target, it also means it's more likely to be used by the specific groups hackers want to prey on."Because there's more people using it there's going to be more people seeking to attack it," Heid said.In the case of the cyberattacks on that appear to have targeted Uighur Muslims, hackers apparently wanted to surveil a specific group — the fact that they were iPhone users put Apple in hacker's sights, too.
The report notes how in recent years Windows has always been the biggest target for hackers, viewed by many as far easier target thanks to weaker security and higher market share. In recent months however, a number of successful attacks against Apple seems to have shattered the idea that Apple software is "impenetrable". The report also notes that because Apple's software is proprietary, the money to be made trhough successful hacking is substanial.
"When your code base is proprietary, when an exploit is found, it's either going to be sold or used for a lot of money,"
According to Heid, hackers are likely to try and replicate the model of previous successful attacks against Apple, where malicious software was able to run on iPhones undetected.
"There's most definitely going to be an increase in attacks on the Apple platform from a malware standpoint,"
An ominous prediction, however there has certainly been a marked increase in reported hacks, attacks and malware against Apple devices and users. Certainly, as Apple's market presence continues to increase, the incentive for hackers to try and crack Apple devices will increase along with it.
