Hundreds of millions of iPhone and iPad users may be at risk after the first-ever major attack on Apple’s App Store. But researchers said among the infected apps included are Tencent’s famous mobile chat app WeChat, car-hailing app Didi Kuaidi and NetEase, an Internet portal music app.

Malicious software was found to have infected some of the most prominent Chinese names in Apple Inc.’s App Store in a security breach that is being called the first of its kind. It happened, according to this Mashable report, as dozens of App store applications were hit with malware.

Xcode Ghost was uploaded to a Baidu server in China, where developers picked up the counterfeit software. When you download Xcode from the Apple Developer website, the code signature is also automatically checked and validated by default as long as you have not disabled Gatekeeper. “We are working with the developers to make sure they’re using the proper version of Xcode to rebuild their apps.”.

Cybersecurity experts say the episode shows that any device, including those running Apple’s iOS software, can be vulnerable to hackers even though Apple is known for rigorously scrutinizing apps that are offered in its store. However, a few days back, security researchers revealed that many top apps on the Apple App store were infected with malware.

Developers normally use the “Xcode” programming framework provided via Apple servers to create apps for Apple devices. Palo Alto Networks, the company that discovered the issue, identified 39 apps, though other reports suggested the number of affected apps could be much higher.

It can be painfully slow to download items from Apple while in China. As soon as we recognized these apps were using potentially malicious code we took them down. many apps are popular elsewhere as well, like the messaging app WeChat, which has about 500 million users, and the business card scanner CamCard.

China is presently one of the biggest markets for the tech giant, so it remains to be seen whether the attack on the company’s Chinese App Store will affect user’s opinion about the company, more importantly, its ability to protect them and their data against such malicious hacks in the future.