Tag: Security

iTunes for Windows prior to 12.12.9 had a critical security vulnerability. Issue is now resolved and all users are encouraged to update as soon as possible.

Microsoft Windows Apps: iTunes

Reference: PSA: Serious Windows iTunes vulnerability discovered, immediate update advised

Apple shared a report claiming that App Store prevented more than $2b fraudulent transactions.

Apple mentions following measures:

• 428k accounts were terminated due to fraudulent activity
• over 100 million account creation request were blocked
• 282 million accounts were deactivated
• almost 1.7 million app submissions were rejected
• ratings were also checked for fraund
• almost 4 million stolen credit cards were blocked from use
• 714k accounts were banned from App Store
• over $2b fraudulent transactions were prevented

Apple sees a lot of criticism from regulators, users and developers for its App Store practices. And sides usually request Apple to loosen and harden App Store requirements at the same time. This reports provides some visibility for Apple efforts on making App Store safe for users and developers.

Apple Newsroom: App Store stopped more than $2 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2022

Apple continues pushing passkey technology through its Developer portal. This time Apple provided:

• Spotlight on: Passkeys – case studies of passkeys usage by notable vendors;
• Q&A with the passkeys team – questions and answers on passkeys adoption;
• Secure your apps and games – guide on passkeys materials available on Apple Developer portal.

Recently Google started supporting passkeys, making passwordless sign in process more mainstream.

Apple was testing Rapid Security Response on beta versions previously, and now finally uses those for iOS/iPadOS 16.4.1 and macOS Ventura 13.3.1.

Apple did not provide security contents of the update yet.

Apple Support: About Rapid Security Responses for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

Apple issues bug fixes for iOS, iPadOS and macOS. Released are iOS/iPadOS 15.7.5, macOS Monterey 12.6.5 and macOS Big Sur 11.7.6.

Updates include important security fixes. Similar fixes were implemented in latest major updates.

Apple Support:

• About the security content of iOS 15.7.5 and iPadOS 15.7.5
• About the security content of macOS Monterey 12.6.5
• About the security content of macOS Big Sur 11.7.6

Reference: Apple Releases iOS 15.7.5, macOS 11.7.6 and macOS 12.6.5 with Security Improvements

It's already April... Apple announced WWDC23 and we have great reads for you this weekend.

• Natascha Fadeeva shares great guide on Create ML usage – Get started with Create ML to train a machine learning model in iOS;
  
  
• Great article by Chris Eidhof on transition animations in SwiftUI – When Matched Geometry Effect Doesn't Work;
  
  
• Network Extension Debugging on macOS by Antoine van der Lee gets us into networking specifics;
  
  
• Great hint by Jesse Squires on how to get better understanding of how new app works – Exploring a new iOS codebase;
  
  
• Drag and drop transferable data in SwiftUI byMajid Jabrayilov covers drag and drop implementation in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese returns to Combine framework – Merge, CombineLatest, and Zip: Comparing Operators of Combine for iOS;
  
  
• Very great hint by Jordan Morgan on debugging practices when working with JSON payloads – Debugging Codable;
  
  
• Security aspects of macOS are covered in macOS Security Bugs Exposed Safari History and Device Location to Unauthorized Apps by Guilherme Rambo.

And couple of takes on absolutely unrelated article which you can read on your Mac – Apple Has Included Bitcoin Whitepaper in Every Version of macOS Since 2018 (and possible explanation – Here’s why macOS has the Bitcoin whitepaper hidden in its files).

We would like to finish this episode with shameless plug of our podcast episode dedicated to ChatGPT. If you find it relevant, please, leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts or any other platform you use to listen to podcasts.

Thank you and see you next week!

Apple publishes bug fix release addressing skin tone customizations for hand emoji and Siri responses. macOS addresses issue with Mac unlock with Apple Watch.

Update also incorporates security updates.

No developer-facing features are reported in this update.

References:

• iOS 16.4.1, iPadOS 16.4.1, and macOS 13.3.1 Fix Actively Exploited Vulnerabilities
• PSA: iOS 16.4.1 and macOS 13.3.1 patch two ‘actively exploited’ security vulnerabilities

Apple continues to test Rapid Security Response mechanism on iOS and macOS.

As in previous case, there are no details on actual content of this update. Most likely, this update is just a test for the delivery system itself.

Reference: Apple Releases Second Rapid Security Response Updates for iOS 16.4 and macOS 13.3 Ventura Beta Users

Apple seemingly continues testing Rapid Security Response mechanisms on its operating systems releasing updates to iOS 16.4 and macOS 13.3 beta.

No known details of the contents of said updates.

References:

• Apple Releases Rapid Security Response Update for iOS 16.4 Beta Users
• Apple pushes Rapid Security Response update for iOS 16.4 beta, may just be a test
• Apple Releases Rapid Security Response Update for macOS Ventura 13.3 Beta

It's winter here in Bay Area today (it even snows somewhere here), so let's grab some warm beverage and get going.

• Let's start with some old articles on C++ interoperability – How to create a Swift Package from a C++ library and Getting started with Swift-C++ interop by Konstantin Semianov;
  
  
• And couple articles on how to make use of layout system in SwiftUI by the same author – Building a wrapping HStack with the SwiftUI Layout protocol and Building a hexagonal grid with the SwiftUI Layout protocol;
  
  
• Ricky Mondello shares security considerations on Twitter's 2FA changes – Twitter’s Decision to Limit SMS 2FA is Dangerous;
  
  
• Show chart annotations on hover in Swift Charts by Natalia Panferova covers adding interactions to charts;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov continues his series on charts – Mastering charts in SwiftUI. Legends.;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese provides guide on view mask usage in SwiftUI – Creating Animations with SwiftUI’s Mask View Modifier;
  
  
• The Composable Architecture best practices by Krzysztof Zabłocki – The Composable Architecture - Best Practices;
  
  
• Arbitrary SwiftUI Linear Gradient Rotation by David Smith goes through gradients in SwiftUI;
  
  
• And another take by him on how to use randomness in the apps – Finding Beauty in Randomness and Nature;
  
  
• Jordan Morgan covers important aspects of accessibility – Building For Voice Control;
  
  
• Speeding Up Scanner in Swift by Michael Tsai collects information on text parsing improvements in Swift;
  
  
• And couple of articles by Jesse Squires – How to find and fix premature view controller loading on iOS and Xcode tip: sharing breakpoints across projects.

Let's finish with interesting video on design process by David Smith.

And that is it for today. See you next week!