Washington/San Francisco - Apple Inc
is planning to fix a flaw that a security firm said may
have left more than half a billion iPhones vulnerable to
hackers.
The bug, which also exists on iPads, was discovered by Zuk
Avraham, chief executive of San Francisco-based mobile security
forensics company ZecOps, while investigating a sophisticated
cyberattack against a client in late 2019. Avraham said he found
evidence the vulnerability was exploited in at least six
cybersecurity break-ins.
An Apple spokesman acknowledged that a vulnerability exists
in Apple’s software for email on iPhones and iPads, known as the
Mail app, and that the company had developed a fix, which will
be rolled out in a forthcoming update on millions of devices it
has sold globally.
Apple declined to comment on Avraham’s research, which was
published on Wednesday, that suggests the flaw could be
triggered from afar and that it had already been exploited by
hackers against high-profile users.
Avraham said he found evidence that a malicious program was
taking advantage of the vulnerability in Apple’s iOS mobile
operating system as far back as January 2018. He could not
determine who the hackers were and Reuters was unable to
independently verify his claim.
To execute the hack, Avraham said victims would be sent an
apparently blank email message through the Mail app forcing a
crash and reset. The crash opened the door for hackers to steal
other data on the device, such as photos and contact details.
ZecOps claims the vulnerability allowed hackers to remotely
steal data off iPhones even if they were running recent versions
of iOS. By itself, the flaw would given access to whatever the
Mail app had access to, including confidential messages.
Avraham, a former Israeli Defense Force security researcher,
said he suspected that the hacking technique was part of a chain
of malicious programs, the rest undiscovered, which could have
given an attacker full remote access. Apple declined to comment
on that prospect.
Avraham based most of his conclusions on data from “crash
reports,” which are generated when programs fail in mid-task on
a device. He was then able to recreate a technique that caused
the controlled crashes.
Two independent security researchers who reviewed ZecOps’
discovery found the evidence credible, but said they had not yet
fully recreated its findings due to time constraints.
Patrick Wardle, an Apple security expert and former
researcher for the U.S. National Security Agency, said the
discovery “confirms what has always been somewhat of a rather
badly kept secret: that well-resourced adversaries can remotely
and silently infect fully patched iOS devices.”
Because Apple was not aware of the software bug until
recently, it could have been very valuable to governments and
contractors offering hacking services. Exploit programs that
work without warning against an up-to-date phone can be worth
more than $1 million.
While Apple is largely viewed within the cybersecurity
industry as having a high standard for digital security, any
successful hacking technique against the iPhone could affect
millions due to the device’s global popularity. In 2019, Apple
said there were about 900 million iPhones in active use.
Bill Marczak, a security researcher with Citizen Lab, a
Canada-based academic security research group, called the
vulnerability discovery “scary.”
“A lot of times, you can take comfort from the fact that
hacking is preventable,” said Marczak. “With this bug, it
doesn’t matter if you’ve got a PhD in cybersecurity, this will
eat your lunch.”