Apple has acknowledged and fixed a critical bug in the iPhone, reports the publication Appleinsider citing security specialist Ian Beer.
According to the vulnerability description in the blog a > Bira, a system flaw made it possible to gain control over any Apple smartphone. The hack could be done using a proprietary wireless mesh network protocol called AWDL. The mechanism discovered by the specialist allowed to get remote access to photos, messages, e-mail on the iPhone, as well as monitor the status of the device.
According to Beer, it took him about six months to study the technology. The engineer created a tool for remote hacking of smartphones based on a Raspberry Pi mini-computer and two Wi-Fi adapters. “With special equipment, the communication range can reach hundreds of meters,” the specialist said. Ian Bier stated that as soon as he assembled the tool, he was able to jailbreak all iPhones in range.
The journalists clarified that Apple has already fixed the vulnerability and released an update. According to the engineer, he does not know if he will receive an award from the company for finding a critical error. If this happens, then Beer promised to transfer all the proceeds to charity.
Previously, specialists Google discovered several zero day vulnerabilities on the iPhone. The found system flaws allowed remote code execution and iPhone jailbreak, as well as receiving data from the OS kernel memory.