Beware iPhone Users, Safari is Ransomware’s New Hideout

Ransomware is one of the most trending cybercrime of this digital age—in fact it’s an apocalypse. We are tired of hearing ransomware scam stories from all around the world. Cyber culprits are hunting more and more naïve users to make them fall into their vicious trap. Our iPhones quite excel if we talk in terms of security, right? Well, who thought one day our privacy will be kept on stake! Yes, the damage has been done. It has recently been reported that a minor iOS bug allowed hackers to lock users out of the Safari web browser and demand a ransom. However, Apple has claimed that they have fixed this bug in their latest iOS update 10.3

Also Read: Top 5 Ransomware Protection Tools

So, how did the Cyberbullies Managed to do it?

Yes, it all starts with a bug! Researchers have claimed that initially a minor bug created a fake pop up which claimed that users have been illegally downloading music or pornography, and in return demanded users to pay £100 in iTunes credit. One of the fake websites was mocked to look like an official Metropolitan Police website, and claimed that the web browser would be unblocked only when the payment was made.

The scam created an endless loop of pop-ups titled “Cannot open page”. As soon as the users clicked the “OK” button to remove the pop-up, a new pop-up got ready to haunt their screen.

Since pop-ups would take up the entire Safari browser, not just individual tabs, the loop effectively locked users out of using the browser unless they knew of a fix to clear website data.

Already a victim? Here’s how to fix it!

If you have already become one victim, then the only way to get rid of the bug is to clear the iPhone web history in the Settings menu. Head on to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data. This will surely rectify the pop-up loop issue. Good Luck!

A good news!

As we earlier stated that Apple has fixed this in its latest iOS update, 10.3, released on Monday. The flaw was disclosed by security company Lookout, which revealed it after the software update was released.

So, in order to stay protected update your iPhone to latest iOS 10.3 to keep the hackers at the bay.

Safety first is Safety Always!