Hello World, Apple is introducing "Lockdown Mode", a new and unprecedented security feature
for iPhones and Macs, that aims to combat "mercenary spyware", in particular "state
sponsored mercenary spyware", which has been a big problem over the last few years.
For the simple reason that governments around the world are quite keen on hacking into the
phones of journalists and activists, this demand has created companies like "NSO Group"
- an Israeli business which employs hundreds of hackers to find severe vulnerabilities
in mainly iOS and Android phones, they then package these up into spyware software which
they sell to governments of dubious moral standing, to use against quote "terrorists
and criminals" - but on occasion this spyware is seemingly used against other groups, allegedly
of course.
Tech giants like Apple aren't happy about this, whether that's because they actually
care about their user's privacy or because constant news of their devices being hacked
just isn't a good look - I'll leave up to your judgement.
But either way Apple has done a fair bit to thwart spyware made by companies like "NSO
group" including beefing up iOS security and implementing a notification system for people
targeted by state sponsored hackers.
Apple is also suing "NSO Group", pledging to donate any damages to anti surveillance
organisations.
But Apple's latest idea is called "Lockdown mode" which will arrive in the next versions
of iOS and MacOS, now this feature isn't a gimmick, it is a real attempt at improving
a device's security.
"Lockdown mode" takes the relatively simple approach of reducing your device's attack
surface - in practice this means that by enabling "Lockdown mode", you are disabling a bunch
of your phone's features.
For example, when "Lockdown mode" is enabled, in the Messages app "Most message attachment
types other than images are blocked."
The whole point of doing this is that whilst I suppose there is someone out there who finds
it useful that the Messages app can handle a wide array of attachment formats, this functionality
introduces a lot of code which could potentially contain vulnerabilities.
And in the past, it has!
One of the most famous exploits that "NSO Group" used was called "FORCEDENTRY", it worked
by using a maliciously crafted pdf file.
And by merely sending the malicious pdf file to a victim through the "Messages App" you
could take over their entire iPhone, all without them even knowing - a bad actor could then
exfiltrate a victims files, read their messages, record their microphone and so on.
This exploit was allegedly used to target "Jordanian Human Rights Defenders and Journalists".
Now, receiving PDF files isn't really essential to an iPhone's functionality, so in "Lockdown
Mode" this feature is removed.
As well as other features that could be exploited like "just-in-time (JIT) JavaScript compilation"
when you're browsing the web, Facetime calls from people you don't have in your contacts,
and wired connections with a computer when your phone is locked.
I mentioned at the beginning of this segment that "Lockdown mode" is kinda unprecedented,
that's because nothing like it has come before.
No other major phone manufacturer has intentionally limited their device's functionality in order
to improve security.
However this new feature isn't for everyone, obviously it's not going to come enabled by
default, it's only meant to be used by people who suspect they're at risk of being targeted
with advanced spyware, which probably isn't you or I. Nevertheless it is, shall we say,
encouraging that Apple is introducing a feature like this, it's only going to be used by a
very small number of people, and will on paper at least make Apple no money.
That being said, it is a pretty good talking point for them, so I imagine we can expect
some bragging about it at the next keynote.
Next up, we have one of the largest data breaches of all time.
1 billion Chinese citizens' personal information was leaked, all because credentials to a database
belonging to the "Shanghai National Police" were posted online by a sloppy developer.
It looks like the programmer accidentally pasted the creds into a blog post, which went
on to cause only the largest data leak in Chinese history.
And before the post could be deleted someone managed to download the entire 24 Terabyte
database, and did the only obvious thing, listing the entire treasure trove for sale
on "breachforums" for 10 bitcoin.
Now, as far as leaks go, this is a pretty spicy one, not only does it include basic
stuff like names, addresses and mobile numbers, but also more sensitive data like national
ID numbers - and because this came from the "Shanghai national police", details of crimes
committed by each person are in the dump - now, most of the crimes are pretty trivial stuff
like road incidents and so on.
But nevertheless, this kind of information is gold dust for personalised spear phishing
campaigns, someone with enough time on their hands could automate a campaign of text messages,
targeting everyone on this list, urging them to... idk... pay a fine for the crime they
committed or something.
However such a campaign wouldn't be quite so effective if the Chinese government did
the right thing and notified their citizens of the leak, encouraging them to be wary of
scams.
But unfortunately, authoritarian governments aren't known for being humble, and the authorities
did the most predictable thing, going one step further than just ignoring the problem
and instead trying to actively stop people from discussing the issue.
The financial times is reporting that on Chinese social media, Hashtags such as “data leak”,
“Shanghai national security database breach” and “1 billion citizens’ records leak”
are being censored.
Also, I tried searching some keywords on Chinese search engine Baidu "china data leak 1 billion"
- But there's no news of the leak at all, instead I was suggested the page "One billion
Chinese fully vaccinated", and I guess, maybe the search engine figured out I was searching
for dissenting information, because it showed me an article titled "Falsehoods in US Perceptions
of China".
The forum that was initially host to the sale of the leak subsequently deleted the post,
and they also censored discussion of the leak - a post by a forum admin said they had removed
the post and deleted any threads discussing the leak, but they didn't give a reason why.
What you tend to find is that forums hosting data leaks and hacking tools will often self
censor if they draw too much negative attention - which shouldn't be surprising I suppose,
would you want to make yourself an enemy of the Chinese state?
I imagine not.
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As always thanks for watching and have a good one.