Apple to Detail iOS 10 Security at Black Hat
Apple, notoriously closed-mouthed about its security technology, plans to detail three new security features of the upcoming iOS 10 operating system at the Black Hat conference next week. The company’s head of security engineering and architecture will present a talk that outlines the functionality of the mechanisms, including HomeKit, the company’s smart home controller, and […]
Apple Patches Code Execution Flaws in iOS
Apple has fixed a series of high-risk vulnerabilities in iOS, including three that could lead to remote code execution, with the release of iOS 9.3.3. One of those code-execution vulnerabilities lies in the way that iOS handles TIFF files in various applications. Researchers at Cisco’s TALOS team, who discovered the flaw, said that the vulnerability has a […]
Apple Needs a Patch Schedule for iOS
Android users don’t have many things they can point to when it comes to security advantages over iPhone users. The iOS platform is considered significantly safer and more resistant to attack than Android, as are the devices. But when it comes to the patching schedule, if not the process, Google has it all over Apple. In […]
Eleanor OS X Backdoor Emerges
Researchers have discovered a new backdoor for Mac OS X that gives attackers essentially complete control over an infected machine. The malware is disguised as a common file converter utility and uses Tor for some communication functions. Known as Eleanor, the backdoor has a wide range of functionality, including the ability for the attacker to […]
House Committee Report Slams Proposed Encryption Legislation
A new report from House Homeland Security Committee on the encryption debate says that despite both parties being motivated to find common ground, law enforcement and the private sector haven’t yet started a meaningful conversation on encryption, and none of the legislative proposals forwarded so far are realistic. The report, released Wednesday, discusses the encryption […]
Apple Exposes iOS’s Unencrypted Core
The beta of iOS 10, released earlier this week, contains some interesting security upgrades and changes, but perhaps the most surprising feature of the software is its unencrypted kernel. That change is a big one for Apple, and security researchers say it could have some interesting effects in the future. In past versions of iOS, […]
On the Wire Podcast: Rich Mogull on Apple Differential Privacy
Apple this week announced a new system called differential privacy that it will be implementing in many of its products in the coming months. The system is designed to allow for the collection of user data without being able to tie any of it back to specific users. But it’s more complicated and nuanced than […]
Apple Upgrades Security for iOS and MacOS
While much of the attention has focused on the differential privacy announcement Apple made during its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this week, The company also made some important security changes to both iOS and OS X that are designed to provide some long-term protections for users. The security upgrades are not as splashy as the privacy […]
Apple Thinks Different on Privacy
Privacy means different things to different people and organizations, and no company is as invested in being different as Apple is. Now, Apple is making a dramatic change to the way it handles user data from a privacy perspective with its plan to employ a strategy known as differential privacy. The theory behind differential privacy relies […]