cross pond high tech

Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of non-jailbroken devices are believed infected after a Trojan compiler malware struck in China.

It involves a maliciously modified version of the XCode integrated development environment (IDE) -- a nasty trick that places it among a family of malware known as "compiler malware".  While not a wholly new strategy, this is the first time that we've seen proof of such a strategy being used to target the iOS crowd.  It's also remarkable in its ability not only to threaten users of non-jailbroken devices but every version of iOS, as well.

And by the looks of it, it's a very succesful indeed as it in effect transforms Apple's walled garden and singular source -- an approach that for so long helped to secure Apple's userbase -- into a digital weapon to attack users.  After all developers trust XCode -- they have to because they have no other choice.  But if they get their copy of Apple's software from a third party (as many even in the U.S. do) they may find their apps secretly Trojanized.

And to make matters worst, in this case Apple is the Trojan dealer, not some sketchy piracy site.  iOS users trust the App Store -- because they have to.  Officially, Apple contends any other source of apps for the iPhone is illegal.  But in this recent breach Apple was very cleverly -- and some would say alarmingly easily -- tricked into distributing malware to 25,000+ iPhone owners.

Google Play worldwide downloads now exceed iOS App Store downloads by around 45%, driven by growth in emerging markets. Russia and Brazil have been on the rise for some time now, but Mexico and Turkey also had a strong influence on Google Play downloads in Q1 2014.The iOS App Store remains comfortably ahead in worldwide revenue, generating about 85% more revenue than Google Play. This gap narrowed over the last quarter though, as Google Play revenue increased markedly in the United States and United Kingdom.China was the key market for iOS App Store growth, showing exceptional gains in both downloads and revenue. iOS App Store revenue in China grew around 70% quarter-over-quarter.Games remained the key category driving growth in both app stores. However, there was also growth in categories outside of Games. Tools saw gains in Google Play revenue, dominated by anti-virus and security apps. On iOS, Finance grew in revenue during tax season in the United States.Messaging apps remained a huge growth area, contributing to the gains for the Communication category on Google Play and Social Networking on iOS.