
Malwarebytes Analysis of Checkm8 iOS Bootrom Exploit - tech234a
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/mac/2019/09/new-ios-exploit-checkm8-allows-permanent-compromise-of-iphones/
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judge2020
iPhones are once again a valid theft target, at least for 5+ years while these
vulnerable devices are still the norm (and for even longer in non-US
countries, i've heard that carriers in India still sell the 6s and 7).

The 8 and 8+ are still available on Apple.com, I wonder if we'll see a
hardware revision or if they'll prematurely take it off the store.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
>even longer in non-US countries

This is often overlooked in discussions about iOS exploits. Although 64-bit
exploits gets the limelight for obvious reasons such as the possibility of
being valid for current series of Apple devices, older 32-bit devices still
being used in non-US countries shouldn't be discounted.

Apple devices often cost much higher than US in some of these countries, the
difference was even much higher several years back when Apple didn't have
dedicated stores in these countries.

Case in point : iPhone 5C was supposedly discounted ($550) when compared to
iPhone 5S at the time of launch in US. In India, it was around ~$700 at
minimum. To put that in perspective, that was a cost for a decent motorcycle
in India which a family can use for at-least 20-30 years.

iPhone 5C can still perform basic smartphone tasks at ease, although it could
be very vulnerable to exploits even for basic browsing[1]. But an average
consumer in India, doesn't care much about the updates when their phone gets
basic tasks done.

[1]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062323)

~~~
kirb
Related to this, Apple just began production of iPhone 6s in India, allowing
them to sell them for cheaper in India than units they would usually import
from China. That’s 2015’s flagship iPhone being produced brand new. So don’t
expect older iPhones to go away anytime soon, especially if India is within
your target market.

Even in first-world countries this is an issue. My employer continues to
support iOS 9 in their app because the balance of the cost of continuing to
support it versus the cost of losing those customers on an iPhone 4s or iPad 2
is justified. Even if we bump it up, it probably won’t surpass iOS 12 (to
continue supporting the iPhone 5s and 6) for several years.

I wonder if this means they’ll continue supporting the 6s for longer than
other phones, like the 5s which enjoyed 6 years and 6 major iOS releases of
support. It feels irresponsible to know there are still millions of instances
of a smartphone in active use around the world, that stopped getting security
patches. When Apple released GPS fixes for older phones, as well as new
updates for the old thin Apple TVs with UI that still looks like iOS 6, and
recent iTunes Windows updates (which bundle WebKit and other Apple core
frameworks), they didn’t backport any patches for vulnerabilities that are
well-known in these older releases. The cost/benefit almost definitely doesn’t
add up favorably when their business primarily relies on hardware profit
margins, I know, but it still seems like a responsible thing to do.

[https://9to5mac.com/2018/06/26/iphone-6s-production-
india/](https://9to5mac.com/2018/06/26/iphone-6s-production-india/)
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT201222)

~~~
Fnoord
> Related to this, Apple just began production of iPhone 6s in India

So Apple is knowingly selling a device with a publicly known hardware
vulnerability. Apple is very much aware of the vulnerability because them
fixing it is what caused the vulnerability to become exploited.

~~~
judge2020
They also knew about it when they made the decision to keep i8 in the US
store, it's vulnerabile still.

The issue is probably that the security team doesn't have much pull (if at
all) when product lineup changes are made.

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acd
Good news from an open source point of view for the iphone boot loader. This
opens up the possibility for example to boot Linux on Iphones.

~~~
dvcrn
Why would you want to do that?

~~~
panpanna
This is Hacker News.

Why wouldn't you?

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rvz
Other than dual-booting Android on the iPhone, I fail to see any other
credibly useful reason to run the Linux kernel or some Linux distro on an
iDevice.

To each to their own I guess.

~~~
simonmales
I have a gifted iPad 2 collecting dust.

IMHO the hardware is quite capable. Meaning that it would be a very convenient
headless server with its own UPS.

Similarly to custom ROMs for Android breath new life in non supported devices,
I believe running Linux on an old iDevice would be simple way to get perfectly
good hardware doing something again.

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yladiz
As someone who doesn’t really know much about this, I wonder, would it be
possible for iOS to understand (not prevent or fix) that this exploit has
occurred and if so what benefits would there be to know?

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KibbutzDalia
Apple specifically uses the words “secure by design” on their website. That’s
a lie.

~~~
umvi
I remember Apple's marketing in 2005:

"I'm a Mac."

"And I'm a PC. Achoo!"

"What's wrong PC?"

"I have a cold."

"Huh, too bad. Macs don't get viruses."

"You never have any security vulnerabilities that get exploited?"

"Nope. Macs just work."

 _The End_

~~~
panpanna
There are some Chromebook ads with a similar message.

(TBH, Chromebooks _are_ the most secure computers normal people can buy today.
But ads like these cannot be recalled if shit hits the fan).

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GordonS
Those Chromebook ads annoy me. They say something like "the laptop with built-
in antivirus", in such a way as to imply that's somehow unique - it isn't.

~~~
panpanna
There is no antivirus in Chromebooks.

