Preserving your privacy … Privacy … Privacy and security … protect your
privacy … privacy at the core … privacy … And as always, privacy is core to our work
… But is this all a lie? New allegations from Russia claim that Apple intentionally
programmed a backdoor into iOS so that the NSA could hack and spy on iPhone users. If true,
this would the biggest cyber security news story of the year,
so let’s have a closer look - you might want to sit down for this one.
On the first of June - The Russian cyber security company ‘Kaspersky’ said they noticed some strange
activity on their corporate WiFi network, and launched an investigation into the iPhones
causing it. Now - Apple does make it quite difficult to forensically examine an iPhone,
the only way is to make a backup of the device first and then inspect that backup
using forensics tools. Kaspersky used MVT - a toolkit developed by amnesty international.
They made the discovery that “several dozen iPhones of their senior employees”
had been infected with “new, extremely technologically sophisticated spyware”,
that Kaspersky is calling “Triangulation”. Triangulation is a fully fledged spyware platform,
capable of secretly listening to a victim’s microphone, stealing their photos, tracking
their location and so on, you could compare it to the infamous Pegasus spyware made by NSO group.
But how did ‘Triangulation’ get onto iPhones in the first place? Now - this is the scary part,
because just like we’ve seen with Pegasus spyware, this was done via a zero click iMessage exploit.
As in, victims didn’t need to click a malicious link or make any kind of security mistake,
they just needed to merely receive a text message which contained a malicious payload.
Now - iMessage has been the enabler of multiple zero click exploits over the past few years,
problem being is what seems like a basic messaging app is actually quite complex,
iMessage supports a load of features and message format types that you’ll probably never even
use. This high level of complexity simply means there’s more code for vulnerabilities to hide in.
For example, whilst we don’t know exactly what kind of iMessage vulnerability was used in this
latest hack, we do know that a couple of years back spyware developed by NSO group exploited the
way .PSD files are rendered within iMessage. .PSD being a file format used by adobe photoshop. It’s
a strange file format for iMessage to support, I mean - even if you use photoshop on a daily basis,
you’ll probably never need to send and receive PSD files in iMessage of all things,
but the fact this functionality even exists, ended up costing some people their privacy.
Apple does provide a way to prevent most iMessage exploits, lockdown mode,
which quite simply blocks most attachment types. But back to ‘Triangulation’, after the malicious
message has compromised the iOS device, Kaspersky explains, that “the exploit downloads several
subsequent stages from the [command and control] server” as in, more malware that
results in the hackers obtaining root access to the device, after which comes the “final payload”,
that “fully-featured APT platform” - which enables the actual spying features.
One major flaw of this spyware is it doesn’t have a persistence mechanism,
so just turning your phone off and on again completely removes it. But Kaspersky notes, that
this is “most likely due to the limitations of the OS” rather than some kind of developer error.
Now the interesting bit, the thorny question of who’s behind ‘Triangulation’, cyber criminals
are unlikely to be behind such a sophisticated campaign. On top of that, cyber criminals want
quick money - but ‘Triangulation’ has been found to go back 4 years, a time frame which
is more in the realm of state sponsored hackers. And this is where the Russian security service,
the FSB comes in. They’re saying that America’s NSA was behind all of this, and that on top of
that, Kaspersky wasn’t the only victim, but thousands of iPhones were targeted including
those belong to the diplomats of “Israel, Syria, China and NATO members“. Implying that America
infected their own allies. It wouldn’t be the first time the US has spied on their allies,
there’s been multiple cases of this over the past decade, to the point where these revelations
aren’t going to shock victims in the slightest. So whilst it is more than fair to treat anything
that comes out of what was once the KGB with a healthy degree of skepticism, let’s be honest
here, it would be the least surprising thing ever if this 4 year long cyber espionage campaign,
which the NSA coincidentally won’t comment on, was actually perpetrated by them.
However the more interesting accusation coming from the Russians is when they said:
“the information received by the Russian special services testifies to the close cooperation of
the American company Apple with the national intelligence community, in particular the US NSA”,
in other words, the Russians are saying that the vulnerabilities that made this whole campaign
possible weren’t just random coding errors, but rather Apple purposefully put them there with the
intention of the NSA exploiting them. Apple of course responded, saying “We have never worked
with any government to insert a backdoor into any Apple product and never will”.
Someone’s obviously lying here, the question is who? Let’s dissect this,
the mere fact that the NSA has been exploiting iOS zero click vulnerabilities is not evidence of
Apple colluding with them. After all, commercial spyware companies like NSO group are quite capable
of finding these high value vulnerabilities without Apple’s help. And let’s not forget,
the NSA dwarfs NSO group in every respect, it has more people, and way more money - the
reality is that the NSA just doesn’t need to have Apple sneak vulnerabilities into iOS for them.
They can’t force Apple to do something like that, they’d have to do it willingly. And
whilst I like to be as cynical of big tech as much as the next guy, I’m struggling here - the
FSB hasn’t provided evidence of any kind of collusion. And whilst I will probably catch
some flak in the comments for this, I’m calling bs on this one. The FSB just haven’t given any
reason for us to believe their claims. But hey, if you do truly believe this did happen,
then feel free to short Apple’s stock and become a millionaire, because this would be disastrous
for Apple if Russia provided evidence that even hinted that this possibly maybe happened.
Whilst the claim that the NSA is behind the campaign is something I can kinda believe,
the idea that Apple intentionally made it all possible is just a couple steps
outside of what is reasonable to assume, at least - unless there’s some kind of proof.
And the Russians do have reason to stretch the truth at least little bit - I mean,
long term they obviously don’t their people hooked on western technology,
sowing some level of discord might help them get there that little bit quicker.
It’s likely no coincidence that on the very same day they made the accusations against Apple,
the Russian government unveiled plans to buy 2 million mobile phones running
Aurora - a proprietary Russian built mobile operating system. But regardless,
the accusations weren’t great timing for Apple, as all this came out just a few days before WWDC.
The ‘triangulation’ campaign is not over, the operation is ongoing. So
how can you tell if an iPhone is hacked? The spyware is designed to be super stealthy,
but there are some telltale signs that a iPhone is infected, the most obvious being that if
you try to update the device you’ll just get an error every time. Also, the malware camouflages
itself as a process called ‘BackupAgent’ - which is a genuine iOS process name,
but it was deprecated several versions ago - so if this process is active on your phone then
that’s a pretty bad sign - but there’s no way to check on a running iPhone, you’d have to make a
backup using iTunes and then sift through logs. Like I said… Apple makes it hard to forensically
examine iPhones. However, Kaspersky has made it somewhat easier by releasing ‘Triangle check
utility’ - a tool that takes an iPhone backup as input and lets you know if you’re hacked,
but realistically, if you’re not a diplomat then chances are you’re fine, maybe, probably.
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As always thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video, have a good one