News

New Malware Could Mean Trouble For iOS & macOS Security

Security researchers discovered an attack vector that, if exploited, would allow hackers to access messages, photos, and more.

Published

4 years ago

February 22, 2023

Nour Nasir

new malware could mean trouble for ios and macos security

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Although Apple’s products are renowned for their robust security, no company is completely immune to hackers and malware. New research has recently revealed an attack vector that can affect Apple’s iPhone and Mac operating systems, allowing criminals to sweep messages, photos, and call history for exploitable data and — even more worryingly — access location data, photos, and the main camera.

The research comes from security firm Trellix, which says that the security flaws rank as “medium to high severity” and bypass the protections Apple puts in place to protect its users.

“The key thing here is the vulnerabilities break Apple’s security model at a fundamental level,” notes Doug McKee, director of vulnerability research at Trellix. McKee thinks his company’s findings could potentially lead to similar bugs being uncovered. However, it’s important to point out that Apple has so far plugged all of the security holes found by Trellix, and there’s no evidence they were ever exploited.

Trellix’s findings build on previous work by Google and Citizen Lab, who jointly discovered malware known as “ForcedEntry”, a zero-click, zero-day iOS exploit linked to Israeli spyware maker NSO Group and found initially on the iPhone of a Saudi activist.

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Analysis of ForcedEntry showed that it worked by fooling an iPhone into opening a malicious PDF disguised as a GIF, ultimately bypassing Apple’s sandbox — a protocol that keeps apps from accessing the data stored by other programs and areas of the device.

While Trellix’s findings are worrisome, it’s important to remember that attackers would need to gain a foothold into a device before being able to install any malware, and Apple has been very efficient at issuing security updates. The initial findings relate to macOS 13.2 and iOS 16.3, which were released in January, so it’s vital that readers ensure their devices are fully up to date!

News

ESET Bets On Specialized Security AI At 0.5% The Training Cost

ESET says NeoCortex can estimate an attacker’s next move, with a kill switch and human oversight built in to keep it from going rogue.

Published

5 days ago

November 4, 2026

Dana Saadeh

eset bets on specialized security ai at 0.5% the training cost

A sign-in anomaly, a suspicious process launch and an unusual connection may look harmless alone. Together, they can describe an intrusion that is hard for security to teams to piece together.

To solve that problem, ESET announced ESET NeoCortex on November 4, 2026: a specialized foundational AI model for cybersecurity. It powers ESET LiveCortex, available within the ESET PROTECT Platform, which connects fragmented security signals and turns them into actionable incidents.

Filtering is the main selling point, with LiveCortex processing billions of raw telemetry events daily, and just 0.00111% of them contributing to incidents presented to customers. The aim is less alert fatigue and more analyst time spent on threats that matter.

NeoCortex is built on world-model architecture, learning how digital environments behave and how events relate. ESET says that lets it reconstruct missing incident context, recognize similar past cases and estimate an attacker’s likely next step – what the company calls “minus-one-day defense,” a chance to intervene before the next stage unfolds. ESET points to Black October, the week leading up to October 25, 2026, when critical security issues affecting PHP, Linux, GitLab and other key systems demanded rapid, prioritized responses, as the kind of moment where that context matters.

ESET’s internal research also suggests a specialized model like NeoCortex can be trained at up to 200 times lower cost than a large general reasoning model, while delivering more accurate, defense-focused results. The company credits optimized training, a focus on cybersecurity vocabulary, lower computing requirements and privately owned hardware.

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“AI is accelerating both cyberattacks and cyberdefenses. With ESET NeoCortex, we are applying our AI investment to develop specialized foundational cybersecurity intelligence that remains under our control and strengthens, rather than replaces, human expertise,” said Juraj Malcho, Chief Technology Officer at ESET.

As part of the design, NeoCortex forms part of a layered architecture combining specialized models, deterministic controls, correlation logic, validation, auditability and expert human oversight. Safeguards include restricted sandboxes, read-only tools, continuous monitoring, defined usage and token limits, a kill switch and human oversight of critical response decisions. The model is also developed and self-hosted on ESET’s own infrastructure, which the company says reduces exposure to shifts among third-party AI providers, including commercial and geopolitical ones.