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> You need physical access I don't understand why people keep downplaying this. The whole point of a secure phone is that the data can't be accessed even with
by jplayer01 7y ago
> You need physical access
I don't understand why people keep downplaying this. The whole point of a secure phone is that the data can't be accessed even with physical access.
- shawnz 7y agoThe attack where you implant some kind of backdoor to capture the data is possible even without this exploit, it just makes it easier.
- gruez 7y agoHow would such an attack (without this exploit) be pulled off?
- shawnz 7y agoFor example, you could implant a hardware backdoor that monitors the touchscreen inputs
- gruez 7y agoTo do that, you'd need to disassemble the phone to insert your implant. That might be hard to do in the field (ie. not in a repair shop/lab setting with plenty of tools lying around). Not to mention the difficulties of designing and manufacturing an implant. How are you going to get it to fit? I don't think there's a lot of empty space inside a phone. How many variants would you need to design and carry around? I'd imagine that the iPhone SE would need a different implant than the iPhone XS, for example. A bootrom attack allows you to replace all of that with plugging in your victim's device into your "hackbox" for 10 seconds. Vastly simpler to execute for your typical goon/henchmen and way less likely to get detected.
- shawnz 7y agoAgreed there is a substantial difference in difficulty between the attacks. I am only speaking to the parent's point about the phone somehow previously being secure and now not being secure. The only thing that's changed is the difficulty of the attack. There are easier physical attacks too: for example just replace the whole device with an identical one you control. Replicate the target's lock screen in software and capture their inputs.
- baroffoos 7y agoYou need physical access AND the device pin. None of these hacks allow you to decrypt the device without the pin. The best you can do is load malware that would grab the pin when the user types it in so the defense for this is if the government ever takes your phone for inspection make sure to reboot it before typing in a pin.
- GeekyBear 7y agoEven in the case of an evil maid attack, a device that has been out of your sight and then demands that you enter the passcode instead of allowing you to use biometrics is immediately suspicious.
- r00fus 7y agoUh - this is the standard on iOS - after a certain amount of time or reboot or the power button x5 shortcut, iOS will demand your passcode instead of TouchID/FaceID.
- dylan604 7y agoBut if the phone has never left your area of trust during that time, there's no problem. If the phone has, then force a reboot of the thing before typing in your PIN. Say you have to walk into a place that demands you relinquish your personal device, but when it is returned to you it requests your pin. The suggestion here is that you reboot your phone to help ensure this jailbreak wasn't done to you. It seems like a simple thing, and fairly painless in this case. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean...
- r00fus 7y agoGood point - I always turn off my devices when entering a checkpoint/border.
- nguoi 7y agoThreat modelling. In most models, if someone has uninterrupted physical access to a device, it's theirs. Phones are more important in that you want to protect the assets from thieves, so we do add non-destructive physical access to our scope, but it's with a higher bug-bar. Someone being able to take your phone, compromise it, then give it back to you so you can input new assets means that a vulnerability has to be severe to be as important as a minor remote vulnerability.