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> iPhones are harder to hack, which is reflected in the prices companies pay for new exploit capabilities. In 2016, the vulnerability broker Zerodium offered $1
by HillaryBriss 8y ago
> iPhones are harder to hack, which is reflected in the prices companies pay for new exploit capabilities. In 2016, the vulnerability broker Zerodium offered $1.5 million for an unknown iOS exploit and only $200 for a similar Android exploit.
I'm curious, given the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem, how many phones each of those two exploits would affect.
- dan-robertson 8y agoI think there are several things driving up the prices of iPhone exploits: 1. Supply: iPhones are more secure so exploits are harder to come by 2. Demand: It is worth more money to break into an iPhone because the users are more likely to be wealthy or politically interesting (or rather, such people are more likely to own iPhones) 3. Demand: Fragmentation—an exploit for the latest iOS version is going to be able to hit a lot more phones than one for some version of Android (maybe limited to specific hardware too) 4. Supply: If Apple discover an exploit they will patch it and people will soon have software upgrades which counter it. Now that exploit is worthless and so the supply has decreased. When an Android exploit is discovered it will be fixed but those who were vulnerable probably won’t get updates and so there is no need for another exploit targeting that platform.