9 ms·

> Victims in range cannot do anything about it. Think about the impact of launching such an attack on Wall Street, or maybe at the world’s busiest airports, or

> Victims in range cannot do anything about it. Think about the impact of launching such an attack on Wall Street, or maybe at the world’s busiest airports, or at large utility plants. The results would be catastrophic. While I can certainly agree it would be annoying, a nuisance and productivity-hindering, calling this "catastrophic" is probably overdoing it a tad much. Catastrophic means by definition that it's related to or involves a catastrophe. iPhone-users not being able to use their iPhones hardly counts as that, no matter where on the planet that happens. With all that said: Neat hack. Now I feel like reproducing it :)

luckman212 12y ago
Judging by the degree to which my girlfriend is glued to Facebook on her iPhone, she probably would classify getting hacked this way as a 'catastrophe' :)
- hn_ 12y ago
  We are a bunch of wimps now. Anything that is mildly inconvenient is now called an emergency or catastrophe or tragedy.
zzleeper 12y ago
Sometimes I see annoying people talk at the school library. Not sure why, but it's mostly on newer iphones (maybe the library demographics favor iphones, maybe assholes like to show their newer phones, who knows). It would be amazing (but highly illegal) if you could just shut them up with a simple command line stroke..
- rahvin 12y ago
  I know it doesn't just happen with any certificate but: How illegal is it to set up a Wi-Fi network with an SSL certificate? Are you responsible for the fact that iOS has a bug in the certificate handling?
  - josteink 12y ago
    > How illegal is it to set up a Wi-Fi network with an SSL certificate? Are you responsible for the fact that iOS has a bug in the certificate handling? If you're crashing/DOSing a remote internet-server by exploiting your knowledge of a bug in the server-software, you may technically just be "sending data", but in court it's the intent which makes it hacking, vs just accidentally crashing something. I would expect this to be treated similarly, but ofcourse legal IT is a jungle of randomness in itself, so I won't make any guaranteed predictions :)
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    How illegal is it to type on a keyboard?
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    Okay, then I'm going to start kicking air, like this! And if any part of you should fill that air, it's your own fault!
- scrollaway 12y ago
  It doesn't sound like you're in any position to judge or complain about other people, given how little respect you show for others.
codeulike 12y ago
“With heavy use of devices exposed to the vulnerability, the operating system crashes as well. Even worse, under certain conditions, we managed to get devices into a repeatable reboot cycle, rendering them useless. So it only crashed the whole device if the device was under 'heavy use', which seems to contradict the claim that it renders devices unusable immediately.
- Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
  Shame, though. I'd love a guerrilla enforcement tactic for the Quiet Carriage on our local trains.
mrThe 12y ago
Btw, how reproduce it? I can't find any technical details about this hack
- RansomTime 12y ago
  They haven't disclosed technical details publicly.
  - yellowapple 12y ago
    What a shame. This would've been a neat prank at work (I'm the only Android user in an office full of iPhone/iPad users).
- werid 12y ago
  The last paragraph in the article: "The researchers say they have warned Apple of the error, and are refraining from releasing technical details about it until after the company has issued a fix. Apple did not respond to a comment request ahead of publication."
rlpb 12y ago
Let's hope that the iPads used as electronic flight bags (containing charts, etc) by pilots all have their wifi disabled.
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  They're likely all in airplane mode.
  - themartorana 12y ago
    I can't tell if this is a joke or not :)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - headShrinker 12y ago
    With wifi on?
- nosuchthing 12y ago
  Let's pray pilots flying air crafts are not relying on an iPad as their only navigation instrument.
jedanbik 12y ago
Phone jamming is a great way to prevent people from calling 911, friends, or family, so there's that.
antimagic 12y ago
Please do try to reproduce it - the company that is responsible for this "discovery" also happens to be selling a product that is supposed to prevent this attack, and the tone of their PR has got my BS-detectors ringing. An example of the sort of thing that gives me doubts. They refer to another supposed demonstrated attack called "Wifigate", which no-one has been talking about, except for themselves. And when you read the details, they claim that iPhones come preloaded with a bunch of WiFi SSIDS that the phone will automatically connect to. mostly telecommunications companies. Up until recently I used to work for one of those listed companies, and I have owned iPhones continuously since the iPhone 3G. I can tell you categorically that iPhones do not automatically connect to SFR wifi hotspots like this company claims. This fact destroys an important part of their claim for this current "attack", that you can be affected even if you've never connected to a Wifi hotspot. So that's one guaranteed example of exaggeration right there, which seeing as it's the only piece of information in the article that I'm capable of verifying myself, makes me very distrustful of the entire article.
- uxp 12y ago
  > When combined with an earlier vulnerability, named “Wi-Figate”, which lets attackers force a device to automatically connect to a given WiFi network I'm not fully up on exploitable iOS tricks, but it sounds like they're spoofing a BSSID to be one that the iOS device has already connected to (because iOS devices broadcast this when scanning for networks IIRC?), but has RADIUS authentication with a specially crafted server certificate that manages to crash the network stack.
  - HackinOut 12y ago
    > (because iOS devices broadcast this when scanning for networks IIRC?) Not anymore, Apple fixed that in recent iOS versions. Probe requests are not divulging SSIDs anymore. However WifiGate uses common SSIDs and network operators preloaded ones as honeypots.
    - 000086 12y ago
      Seems that wasn't fixed reliably. Still seeing lots of probe requests. Is there a https://support.apple.com/HT.. https://support.apple.com/HT... talking about it?
dustingetz 12y ago
Hospital staff communicates with text messages
pistle 12y ago
Large utility plant? Mind runs down list of catastrophy vectors for iOS in large utility plants Large utiltity plant... iOS... large utility plant... iOS... Did I miss the post where large utility plants said "Why we stopped using closed control systems for our reactors and switched to iPads" ?
ender89 12y ago
It could be used to paralyze communication networks and, in conjunction with other actions, could be catastrophic. Or even just used to interrupt iOS service for anyone that uses it in part of their job. You could go small and interrupt a small business's iPad POS, or you could disable an airplane's usage manual running on the cockpit iPad. There's a lot of stuff you could do with this exploit.

luckman212 12y ago

Judging by the degree to which my girlfriend is glued to Facebook on her iPhone, she probably would classify getting hacked this way as a 'catastrophe' :)

hn_ 12y ago
We are a bunch of wimps now. Anything that is mildly inconvenient is now called an emergency or catastrophe or tragedy.

zzleeper 12y ago

Sometimes I see annoying people talk at the school library. Not sure why, but it's mostly on newer iphones (maybe the library demographics favor iphones, maybe assholes like to show their newer phones, who knows). It would be amazing (but highly illegal) if you could just shut them up with a simple command line stroke..

rahvin 12y ago
I know it doesn't just happen with any certificate but: How illegal is it to set up a Wi-Fi network with an SSL certificate? Are you responsible for the fact that iOS has a bug in the certificate handling?
- josteink 12y ago
  > How illegal is it to set up a Wi-Fi network with an SSL certificate? Are you responsible for the fact that iOS has a bug in the certificate handling? If you're crashing/DOSing a remote internet-server by exploiting your knowledge of a bug in the server-software, you may technically just be "sending data", but in court it's the intent which makes it hacking, vs just accidentally crashing something. I would expect this to be treated similarly, but ofcourse legal IT is a jungle of randomness in itself, so I won't make any guaranteed predictions :)
- Tloewald 12y ago
  How illegal is it to type on a keyboard?
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  Okay, then I'm going to start kicking air, like this! And if any part of you should fill that air, it's your own fault!
scrollaway 12y ago
It doesn't sound like you're in any position to judge or complain about other people, given how little respect you show for others.

codeulike 12y ago

“With heavy use of devices exposed to the vulnerability, the operating system crashes as well. Even worse, under certain conditions, we managed to get devices into a repeatable reboot cycle, rendering them useless. So it only crashed the whole device if the device was under 'heavy use', which seems to contradict the claim that it renders devices unusable immediately.

Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
Shame, though. I'd love a guerrilla enforcement tactic for the Quiet Carriage on our local trains.

mrThe 12y ago

Btw, how reproduce it? I can't find any technical details about this hack

RansomTime 12y ago
They haven't disclosed technical details publicly.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  What a shame. This would've been a neat prank at work (I'm the only Android user in an office full of iPhone/iPad users).
werid 12y ago
The last paragraph in the article: "The researchers say they have warned Apple of the error, and are refraining from releasing technical details about it until after the company has issued a fix. Apple did not respond to a comment request ahead of publication."

rlpb 12y ago

Let's hope that the iPads used as electronic flight bags (containing charts, etc) by pilots all have their wifi disabled.

w1ntermute 12y ago
They're likely all in airplane mode.
- themartorana 12y ago
  I can't tell if this is a joke or not :)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- headShrinker 12y ago
  With wifi on?
nosuchthing 12y ago
Let's pray pilots flying air crafts are not relying on an iPad as their only navigation instrument.

jedanbik 12y ago

Phone jamming is a great way to prevent people from calling 911, friends, or family, so there's that.

antimagic 12y ago

Please do try to reproduce it - the company that is responsible for this "discovery" also happens to be selling a product that is supposed to prevent this attack, and the tone of their PR has got my BS-detectors ringing. An example of the sort of thing that gives me doubts. They refer to another supposed demonstrated attack called "Wifigate", which no-one has been talking about, except for themselves. And when you read the details, they claim that iPhones come preloaded with a bunch of WiFi SSIDS that the phone will automatically connect to. mostly telecommunications companies. Up until recently I used to work for one of those listed companies, and I have owned iPhones continuously since the iPhone 3G. I can tell you categorically that iPhones do not automatically connect to SFR wifi hotspots like this company claims. This fact destroys an important part of their claim for this current "attack", that you can be affected even if you've never connected to a Wifi hotspot. So that's one guaranteed example of exaggeration right there, which seeing as it's the only piece of information in the article that I'm capable of verifying myself, makes me very distrustful of the entire article.

uxp 12y ago
> When combined with an earlier vulnerability, named “Wi-Figate”, which lets attackers force a device to automatically connect to a given WiFi network I'm not fully up on exploitable iOS tricks, but it sounds like they're spoofing a BSSID to be one that the iOS device has already connected to (because iOS devices broadcast this when scanning for networks IIRC?), but has RADIUS authentication with a specially crafted server certificate that manages to crash the network stack.
- HackinOut 12y ago
  > (because iOS devices broadcast this when scanning for networks IIRC?) Not anymore, Apple fixed that in recent iOS versions. Probe requests are not divulging SSIDs anymore. However WifiGate uses common SSIDs and network operators preloaded ones as honeypots.
  - 000086 12y ago
    Seems that wasn't fixed reliably. Still seeing lots of probe requests. Is there a https://support.apple.com/HT.. https://support.apple.com/HT... talking about it?

dustingetz 12y ago

Hospital staff communicates with text messages

pistle 12y ago

Large utility plant? Mind runs down list of catastrophy vectors for iOS in large utility plants Large utiltity plant... iOS... large utility plant... iOS... Did I miss the post where large utility plants said "Why we stopped using closed control systems for our reactors and switched to iPads" ?

ender89 12y ago

It could be used to paralyze communication networks and, in conjunction with other actions, could be catastrophic. Or even just used to interrupt iOS service for anyone that uses it in part of their job. You could go small and interrupt a small business's iPad POS, or you could disable an airplane's usage manual running on the cockpit iPad. There's a lot of stuff you could do with this exploit.