Today Apple announced the removal from App Store of several applications that use root certificates to block ads not only on websites, but also inside other applications.
Apple claims that such programs (for example, Been Choice) can potentially view the user's Internet traffic in order to break the SSL / TLS encryption system used by the sites and obtain your personal data or the log of the sites visited.
“Apple is closely monitoring the privacy and security of users,” says a representative Apple. “We removed from App Store several applications that install root certificates that monitor network data that could be used to compromise SSL / TLS. We are working with the developers of these apps to bring them back to App Store faster without compromising security or privacy. ”
Root certificate-based ad blockers work by deeply inspecting every packet of data sent and received by your device. It was a little unexpected to see how Apple approved similar apps for distribution in App Store, as they are able to block advertisements inside other, including standard, applications.
So far, there has been no information that root-certificate blockers are stealing personal data, but it is possible that such cases could occur in the future.
[iMore]