Originally published at: Apple Adds Lockdown Mode to Protect Activists and Government Targets - TidBITS
Apple announced it will add an enhanced security mode to this year’s planned operating system updates to deter government-level spyware.
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A very interesting addition. I realize its present implementation is geared towards people who are at high risk or already under attack.
I wonder though, if by allowing for a more granular approach (say, allow only text and images to arrive in my messages inbox), this could be opened up to a larger crowd who knows they individually do not need their devices quite as open as perhaps others. More granular control I’m pretty sure could make certain parts of this far more accessible to ‘regular’ users such as myself.
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Glenn - I recently heard a NY-Times (The Daily) story about NSO/Pegasus.
My question is: Isn’t possible for Apple to detect presence of this NSO spyware (and/or other similar spyware), and disable, and/or remove this software? If it is possible, why do they not offer this removing service?
Apple has taken steps in the past to patch vulnerabilities that NSO and others have used to infect iPhones, but NSO just finds a new vulnerability to use. Detecting and removing an already infected device is much more difficult using a software update and AFAIK has never been attempted. The only solution that I have seen is a Device Firmware Update (DFU), basically a factory reset.
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Thanks for the note. It still seems strange to me that Apple appears to be unable to develop a more satisfying solution.
Rootkits by their nature are rather difficult/impossible to remove. I assume that Apple does do emergency patch releases to eradicate them as soon as they are aware of their existence and the vulnerabilities they exploit (these days there are often a chain of several vulnerabilities that are exploited).
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