Apple Updates iOS To Close Three Separate 0days That Were Being Exploited

from the throw-away-your-phone dept

Thu, Aug 25th 2016 12:00pm — Mike Masnick

As you may have heard, if you have an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, even iPod Touch) you should be updating your devices, like a few hours ago. Seriously, if you haven't done it yet, stop reading and go update. The story behind this update is quite incredible, and is detailed in a great article over at Motherboard by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai. Basically after someone (most likely a gov't) targeted Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates with a slightly questionable text (urging him to click on a link to get info about prison torture), a team of folks from Citizen Lab (who have exposed lots of questionable malware) and Lookout (anti-malware company) got to work on the text and figured out what it did. And, basically the short version is that the single click exploits three separate 0days vulnerabilities to effectively take over your phone in secret. All of it. It secretly jailbreaks the phone without you knowing it and then accesses basically everything.

“It basically steals all the information on your phone, it intercepts every call, it intercepts every text message, it steals all the emails, the contacts, the FaceTime calls. It also basically backdoors every communications mechanism you have on the phone,” Murray explained. “It steals all the information in the Gmail app, all the Facebook messages, all the Facebook information, your Facebook contacts, everything from Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, Telegram—you name it.”

So that's great.

The researches believe they've tracked back the exploit to a secretive hacking company called NSO Group. The full Citizen Lab writeup on all of this is quite fascinating as well. They estimate that this exploit from NSO probably costs in the range of a million dollars on the market, though obviously it's closed now. That doesn't mean that NSO or others don't have other exploits up their sleeves.

The report also notes that this kind of exploit is probably just used by nation states right now, but there's nothing to say that it couldn't move down the stack before too long, letting all sorts of mischievous characters look to basically completely pwn your phone. Pretty scary stuff, and yet another reminder of why it's so dangerous that folks like the NSA are hoarding 0days, rather than revealing them, and that the FBI is trying to force tech companies to break encryption and other tools that are necessary to block these kinds of attacks.

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Filed Under: 0days, exploits, hacking, human rights, ios, iphone, surveillance, vulnerabilities
Companies: citizen lab, lookout, nso

19 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 12:07pm

Not all bad news
Hopefully these exploits can be used on unsupported devices to make them more useful after Apple abandoned them.
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I.T. Guy, 25 Aug 2016 @ 12:22pm

I think there was a typo:
"The researches believe they've tracked back the exploit to a secretive hacking company called NSO Group."

Did they mean NSA group?
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 1:30pm

Re: Not all bad news
If by "more useful", you mean "not suitable for internet surfing"... because if you can use them to pwn your own device by visiting a website, anyone else can as well.

So unless your jailbreak plans include "avoiding the public internet" - I'm not sure it makes them more useful at all. In fact, it basically does the opposite - rendering them "unsafe for any use".
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 1:35pm

Hillary
Someone needs to let Hillary Clinton know that _maybe_ she doesn't want to use Facetime instead of email in light of this - As she was telling Jimmy Kimmel that Facetime was a GREAT idea.
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Scott Yates (profile), 25 Aug 2016 @ 1:47pm

Oh-Day?
Should the title be ZERO-Day or OH-Day?
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 1:50pm

Re: Re: Not all bad news
Devices that are supported by Apple don't receive security updates so yes, they are "not suitable for internet surfing". The idea is to turn these bricks back into useful and possibly even secure devices with new software. There are millions of otherwise functioning iOS devices that cannot be improved because Apple holds the key.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 1:50pm

Re: Re: Re: Not all bad news
Should read "Devices that are not supported by Apple"
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 2:00pm

My question is why would an Israeli company be helping the UAE, a country that doesn't recognize Israel as a state?
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SpaceLifeForm, 25 Aug 2016 @ 2:41pm

Money
When you are addicted
to money, nothing else
matters. See Mr. Robot
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JBDragon (profile), 25 Aug 2016 @ 2:56pm

Re: Not all bad news
You mean how Apple will support a iPhone for at least 4 years, while Google only suggests 18 months with Android!!! Considering Google releases security updates for Android every month and only a tiny fraction of Android phones even get them, talking about abandonment!!
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David (profile), 25 Aug 2016 @ 3:25pm

Please use Zero-day or Zday
for exploits in headlines. oday, 0day are not very clear.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 4:19pm

Simple Answer
Leaving vulns unpatched is a crime against everybody, not just your enemies.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 4:24pm

Re: Re: Re: Not all bad news
Yes, it's really too bad that Apple has locked down the hardware preventing alternative operating systems from being deployed.. which would actually make them more useful.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2016 @ 4:27pm

Re: Re: Not all bad news
At least with an Android device, there are 3rd party ROMs that can be used to continue updating and securing the device for years to come.

I have many such devices.

Apple, on the other hand, doesn't cut their devices free - rendering them landfill-worthy at best.
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MrTroy (profile), 26 Aug 2016 @ 12:55am

Re: Not all bad news
Create a tool utilising malicious code to try to help people against their will? What could possibly go wrong?
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TRX (profile), 26 Aug 2016 @ 2:38am

Sounds like a convenient 1-click way to back up all your data...
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2016 @ 7:23am

Re:
It works great for backing up your data. Restoring it, not so much.
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nasch (profile), 27 Aug 2016 @ 3:46pm

Re: Re: Not all bad news
You mean how Apple will support a iPhone for at least 4 years, while Google only suggests 18 months with Android!!!

Support is up to the carrier. As you say, Google releases security and OS updates but it's up to the carriers to push them out. There are advantages and disadvantages to the Android ecosystem compared to Apple.
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xtrassie (profile), 20 Sep 2016 @ 11:18pm

Update，why and why not？
But I still think there's some feature you can update and
try for,such as 3D Touch, Voice mail transcription,Siri...
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