Will the magic turn against the wizard, and the Apple Walled Garden becomes the perfect place for hackers to hide?

 There is no denying what Apple is doing to protect its devices and its users' data, and almost everyone agrees that the iPhone's Walled Garden strategy has solved many of the major security problems and yet there is still some concern that the magic will turn on the wizard.

What's the story

The MIT Technology Review platform published a new report released a few days ago, and it was centered around Apple's tireless and continuous work on hardware and software security and the potential unintended consequences. Apple's walled garden provides strong protection, but that strategy is a "double-edged sword." The wall makes the process of penetrating the iPhone 99% more difficult, but there is the 1% that we should fear them because the report described them as geniuses of hackers or major hackers and they will certainly find a way to access the iPhone, and once they enter, the fortress of the iPhone that cannot be penetrated will protect them. They are safe and cannot be detected.

Why can't they be discovered

Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at watchdog Citizen Lab, who participated in the discovery of the iMessage application exploit that was used to penetrate the phones of journalists and dissidents in an Arab country, says that his main concern is increasing about iPhones, which is becoming more and more difficult for us researchers in the field of Security Detecting vulnerabilities or even finding any malicious activities, and although Apple invests in strengthening the walls of its garden, the best hackers are the ones who exploit an unknown zero-click vulnerability that allows him to invisibly seize iPhone devices and those types of vulnerabilities. It allows attackers to access restricted areas inside the device without showing any indication that this device has been compromised, and once they are at that depth, Apple's tall wall becomes a barrier preventing researchers from detecting or understanding this harmful behavior.

As for Ryan Sturtz, a security engineer at Trail of Bits, who leads the development of the iVerify tool, which is an Apple-approved security application that is used to check iPhones and search for any security deviations (unjustified file modifications) according to Apple's rules, no He can also rely on the application directly to notice any malicious or unknown software on the iPhone because the system blocks the application and prevents it from recognizing or reading anything in the same way that security applications do on other devices. Nevertheless, Ryan believes that Apple's walled garden approach is Most suitable because shutting down everything reduces the damage of malware and any spying attempts.

To simplify the problem, we can describe Apple's security system as putting each application in a special SandBox and preventing other applications from knowing what is happening in this application or accessing it, as if Apple is building a wall of separation between them. If the hacker finds a Zero-Click vulnerability, he can enter and penetrate a specific application without leaving a trace behind, and thus the security researcher does not find any evidence of something strange to complete the search because these high walls concealed the penetration. It is very difficult for the researcher to penetrate each application separately to search whether there are hackers codes for it or not. Perhaps this is why Apple has taken steps to make it more difficult to find Zero-Click vulnerabilities, as we explained in Previous article. Of course, this system of high fences protects you from 99% of Harkis, but if someone from them gets in, it will be very difficult to detect.

What about Android

Some expect Windows and Android to follow Apple’s footsteps for its gated garden. “The Android system is increasingly shutting down, we expect both Mac and Windows devices to look like iPhones when it comes to security and safety,” says Aaron Cockrell, senior official at Lookout Mobile Security. “.

Finally, the report talked about a theoretical solution that Apple can implement, which is granting limited access to security researchers so that they can move more to discover hidden flaws and new threats in the system, but the problem is that Apple said it previously and still insists on it, if it creates exceptions or a back door, it will It's ultimately exploited by bad guys so in my view, Apple's walled garden protects us from 99% of threats and that's more than enough for me.

Source:

technologyreview