Apparently, the official Apple Podcasts app is reporting serious problems in certain users, and despite being the company's original, which usually provides more security and fewer errors, it is suffering from quite strange behavior in many clients.
Everything indicates that those who have it installed would have seen how it opens by itself, and loads podcasts that they themselves do not know or have not played voluntarily, which puts everyone who has experienced it quite on alert, waiting for an explanation from Apple.
Problems with Apple Podcasts
Lately, security experts have seen something strange in the Apple Podcasts app. Sometimes the app opens by itself and shows episodes you didn't choose. Many of those Episodes have strange titles or include links to web pages. For now it has not been confirmed that anyone has had real problems, but the fact that the app does this could allow it to be used to spread dangerous content if one day there is a flaw that can be exploited, since that type of content, and the way it is executed, is very strange and not natural for Apple.
This behavior has been seen on both iPhone and Mac. For example, the app may open itself when unlocking the device or when visiting some web pages, loading the episode that the attacker has prepared. On macOS this can even happen without the user having to accept anything. In one case, an episode led to a page that attempted to use a special type of code that can affect web pages if combined with other flaws, so it could be a pretty significant security risk.
For users, this is not an immediate danger. Opening a strange episode alone does not cause harm, but experts say that if there are flaws in the app in the future, this behavior could be a risk, since other gaps could be found, which, combined with this one, would be a danger. While Apple does not give details, it is best to keep an eye out for episodes that appear alone, Do not click on unknown links and always keep the system and apps updated. This reminds us that even trusted apps can behave in unexpected ways and that caution and up-to-date information help protect us without panicking.
If you do not use this app, and are not a recurring podcast user, you can even remove it while Apple finds a solutionminimizing risks that, despite being very low, are there, and there is no point in taking risks if we have barely used this app. As an alternative, for the moment, we have Spotify, or YouTube, where most of the episodes that we can find on Apple will be there too, but without these problems.
And you, have you suffered any problems of this style? Did you think it was your iPhone? If it happens to you, you already know why, and you don't need to be scared, because Apple will fix it soon, but for now it is something that could happen to you. Leave us a comment with your experience.
