Apple down 40,000 app just because "hot update"

Before removing the software hot update function, or it may be next shelf, yesterday (June 22), there is media coverage, within a week Apple app Store shelves nearly 40,000 Chinese apps. One popular view is that Apple is not talking about playing, it's really a hot update on the knife.

Hot update is a popular update for many apps, such as Big hand tours, that is, the instant updates that users experience when they open the app after they've downloaded the app from the App Store.

In June 2017, the AppStore audit team did send an email for the "Hot Update" APP developer in AppStore, requesting that all relevant codes, frameworks, or SDKs be removed and re-submitted for review, or that the software would be in the middle of AppStore.

Why do app developers embed the hot update feature?

Due to the early AppStore audit is slow, developers encounter online bugs, will be due to audit cycle issues caused by bug fixes are not timely. Many companies, especially individual developers, pursue the speed of product release, causing the product to go online without a very comprehensive test, they want to "hot update" way to compensate for the product before the launch of the problem of inadequate testing.

With the use of "hot update", there are also many products started through the "Hot update" way to develop features, so that the product version does not need AppStore audit, so as to achieve the purpose of rapid release.

What are the consequences of "hot update" being exploited?

There is no discovery that hackers are using "hot updates" to launch attacks on IOS apps. The main use of "hot Update" is to release malicious "Hot Update" code. Because of the "hot Update" framework, specific malicious code may be Lua, Java, Lisp dialect, and so on. Most "hot update" frameworks do not implement a sandbox, so malicious code can take almost full control of the app's startup page, get the user's login password, and pass it on to the remote server. In addition, the use of "hot update" to do malicious attacks, the general need to combine other attack technology, such as: DNS poisoning, malicious WiFi, first compromised code server and so on.

What is the reason for Apple's bold, down-to-the-shelf App?

In fact, not only because of the "hot update" problem, but also include: Cottage cloning applications, the dissemination of pirated music content, many years of unmanned applications, incompatible 64 application system. On the one hand, because "hot update" can cause some security problems, the main reason is because "hot update" will weaken Apple's control of the application in AppStore, this should be Apple more care .

Just changing the APP code is not going to be the fate of the "Down rack".

From the AppStore review strategy, developers simply remove the "hot Update"-related code and may not be able to fully meet Apple's requirements for App audits. In addition to the "Hot Update" framework, Apple also requires developers to not use APIs that can change program behavior at run time, including: Nsclassfromstring, Nsselectorfromstring, Dlopen, and so on.

Jiangsu Three AI Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Apple bottom Shelf 40,000 app just because of "hot update"