Apple iOS: built in hardware backdoors

Projects Discussion and Showcase Device Hacking
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Many of you may have seen the news that five generations of Apple iPhones, over the last five years, all have secret hardware backdoors in them, and those have been used by unknown attackers to unlock phones of various diplomats around the world (and phones belonging to researchers at Kaspersky, who discovered the attack). Check out articles in Ars Technica, or Google "triangulation attack" or "CVE-2023-38606 exploit" to learn more.

This Security Now podcast goes into great detail about the backdoor, and additional exploits that were needed to access that backdoor.

Apple representatives deny knowledge of the exploit, however it is nearly impossible to escape the conclusion that the backdoor was designed into the hardware by Apple engineers, with great secrecy, and some people at Apple have known about it all along. And somehow, the secret got out. Skip ahead to 32:40 for the main expose.

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That is disturbing.

I found it very surprising that last year I went to an Apple Store for some support.

I turned my iPhone 8 on, the technician just placed his iPad next to my iPhone, and without ever touching it he ran a full diagnostics on my unit.

“Well”, I thought, “they have the tools to do that and I trust Apple”.

But what if those tools get to the wrong hands?

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34:40.

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Typo. Sorry you had to see an ad. There is another one maybe 40 minutes later, which I also skipped over.

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Man that's crazy. But really those little back doors probably exist everywhere. Imagine you work there building that thing. Apple making all that money on your work. You know how much that back door is worth. I'm not saying that everyone is that morally deficient, but you know that there are some people that are.

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