hacking

Well-known developers Steve Troughton-Smith, Saurik and Adam Bell have managed to hack the Apple Watch on watchOS 2 to run truly native apps on the device. Although Apple is advertising native apps with watchOS 2, it isn’t as ‘native’ as some developers wanted or expected. The logic code now runs on the watch, but raw access to the user interface is still not allowed on watchOS 2.

This means frameworks like UIKit cannot be used to draw truly custom UI. Instead developers must rely on the same techniques employed with current WatchKit apps that revolve around image sequences to create more interesting effects.

In the demo, video embedded below, the team managed to get a fully interactive 3D object running on the Apple Watch powered by Apple’s SceneKit framework.

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Update: EA said in a statement that it’s investigating the reports (via TheVerge):

“Privacy and security are of the utmost importance to us, and we are currently investigating this report… We’ve taken immediate steps to disable any attempts to misuse EA domains…”

According to a report from internet security and research company Netcraft, hackers have compromised an EA Games server and are currently using it to host a phishing site that steals Apple IDs and more from unsuspecting users. The company published its report today and says it contacted EA yesterday to report the discovery, but as of publishing the compromised server and the phishing site stealing Apple IDs were still online.

Netcraft claims the phishing site being hosted on EA’s servers not only asks for an Apple ID and password but also the user’s “full name, card number, expiration date, verification code, date of birth, phone number, mother’s maiden name, plus other details that would be useful to a fraudster.” Netcraft also reports that EA Games is being targeted in other phishing attacks that are attempting to steal user data from its Origin game distribution service:
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Evernote, Adobe, even Apple … just a few of the companies who have found their user data compromised by hackers in recent times. The possibility of a hacker being able to access one of your web accounts is worrying enough – but if you use the same email address and password for almost all the websites you use, the risk becomes huge.

The first thing a hacker does when they get hold of a list of usernames and passwords is to use automated software to fire them at a whole bunch of popular websites. That means your online security is only as good as the most vulnerable of the websites you visit. Not good.

The answer, of course, is to use a unique – and strong – password for each website you access. But that creates its own hassles. Strong passwords aren’t easily memorised. Sure, we can ask our browsers to store logins for us, but when you might use several different computers, an iPhone and an iPad, you’d have to login once from each device as soon as you chose the password so it gets stored before you forget it. Not very convenient.

Which is where password managers come in. When you see the instructions, it’ll look like a long process, but it in fact takes only 10-20 mins if you have two or three devices … 
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