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I’d like to suggest a fun project for Apple that might allow them to kill off this NSO malware: Apple should devote a few engineers to create honeypot iPhones t
by cantrevealname 7y ago
I’d like to suggest a fun project for Apple that might allow them to kill off this NSO malware: Apple should devote a few engineers to create honeypot iPhones that they could get into the hands of a few carefully chosen journalists and dissidents who would then “lose” their phones or allow the phones to be confiscated by governments or organizations who use NSO software. The objective is to get a copy of the NSO malware and figure out the exploit(s) they use.
The honeypot phones would behave exactly like normal phones but save all incoming data at the lowest protocol layer (whether by wifi, cellular, Lightning connector, and maybe even in-circuit attempts to reflash firmware) to hidden internal terabyte microSD storage, which it would later exfiltrate back to Apple at some point —- perhaps by even having a second hidden cellular connection. I’m assuming that Apple has all the talent it needs to reverse engineer and plug the NSO malware once it has an actual copy of the malware.
- jacobush 7y agoThat would be a very offensive move. I like it. How will that kill off this malware though? Just by making incrementally harder (might work!) or through something more fundamental I'm missing?
- cantrevealname 7y ago> How will that kill off this malware though? I wouldn’t be surprised if everything that NSO does depends on just one or two extremely good exploits. Once Apple rolls out an update to patch the one or two critical bugs, it’ll stop NSO for a nice long time until they spend hundreds of man years or millions of dollars to find another exploit that’s just as good.
- saagarjha 7y agoI don't actually think it costs hundreds of man years to find these bugs at the moment.
- georgespencer 7y ago> governments I'm sure you know this, but deliberately committing an act of espionage to directly or indirectly subvert the activities of government agencies would be a silly thing for Apple to try to do. Their dollars are better spent on lobbying (make shit like this illegal), and engineering (make shit like this literally not work because iPhone is as secure as it can be).
- ipython 7y agoSince when does a foreign government performing espionage give a crap about the target country’s laws? It’s naive to think some adversary is going to see “hacking is illegal” and just throw up their hands and say gee whiz I guess there goes our plans...
- georgespencer 7y agoYou're making some faulty assumptions about what I'm saying, which means I probably wasn't clear - sorry. What I mean is: making software like this for sale to the highest bidder should not be something a company is able to do legally. It should be as bizarre as the idea of incorporating a business in the US specifically, and publicly, to rob banks or commit securities fraud.
- gowld 7y ago1st and 2nd Amendments, baby
- dvtrn 7y agoWhat does this response mean? I know those two amendments intimately. I do not understand how they’re germane as a response, invoking the first and second amendments as a defense to corporate espionage and potential obstruction?
- hermitdev 7y ago> making software like this for sale to the highest bidder should not be something a company is able to do legally. I disagree. There ahould be nothing inherently illegal about owning, making or selling such software to an entity that can legally use it. (I would assume any country employing such software would indemnify there agents using it against foreign adversaries). Not that I like it, and as a private citizen, I dont like thw prospect of being spied on, even though I have nothing to hide. To stop it, I think you'd need to take a step back into the 90s and early 2000s and classify such programs as munitions and restrict export (not that all offerings are from US countries).
- TrainedMonkey 7y agoThis is an interesting thought exercise, I am going to ask a few questions. Think about them and then decide if this is a good idea: 1. How big will the project be? I.E. what staff you need to develop AND deploy honeypot phones. 2. Who would decide targets? 3. What do you do with the data collected? Who enforces those rules? 4. How do you keep the project secret? 5. How do you prevent various 3 letter agencies from ordering you to deploy this technology for national security? 6. How do you protect Apple's reputation once it leaks out that there are secret phones that eavesdrop on you? A better long term strategy is to offer large bug/exploit bounties. This foils malware and builds trust in Apple platform.
- __s 7y ago5 & 6 seem incorrect here. Apple could do it regardless of whether they deploy this sort of thing. As for 6, the idea is that the journalist knows they have a doctored device
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y agoYou're naively assuming that Apple's decision making and internal coms have not already been compromised by these same malicious actors. In terms of risk reward, comprising the hardware makers internal coms is priority 0.
- badrabbit 7y agoSo...malware isn't that simple. Network honeypots can work for that but malicious apps or remote exploit that require specifics apps/services running under the target's account would not be easy to catch this way. APTs are not exactly a new thing. On windows you get endpoint security software that logs excessive telemetry to a place threat hunters of security companies can search to find exploitation or infection attempts.
- tbodt 7y agoNSO likely has dozens of backup bugs and is capable of finding more, so this wouldn't work unless you can continue it forever.