New documents from Edward Snowden demonstrates how UK spy agency was able to get information from users iPhones.
Apple has been known to go a long way, to keep iPhones secure and private, but by compromising users’ computer British spy agency was able to gain location and data from iPhones.
The attack was not targeted on iPhone itself but on computers with which Iphones were synchronised. Because of the flaws in Apple’s unique device identifier (UDID) they were able to access most of the data stored on the phone.
According to the report, which was dispatched to several journalists, it shows different iPhone UDID identifiers which could be found through accessing computers – code visible in iTunes. With this the data was able to be viewed each time the iPhone was synchronised with the computer. In addition tracking of the iPhones was possible with Safari browser exploit.
Apple has stopped using UDID identifiers shortly after and has begun rejecting this system and applications which used UDID.
After the leak of this news, tech companies started to demand from governments to stop collecting the metadata but it still remains a concerning fact how far spy agencies go to monitor users and how effective they can be at gathering their data.
via the verge
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