London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Apple Fixes One of the iPhone's Most Pressing Security Risks

Apple Fixes One of the iPhone's Most Pressing Security Risks

By hardening iMessage in iOS 14, the company has effectively cut off what had been an increasingly popular line of attack.
Apple's iOS operating system is generally considered secure, certainly enough for most users most of the time. But in recent years hackers have successfully found a number of flaws that provide entry points into iPhones and iPads. Many of these have been what are called zero-click or interactionless attacks that can infect a device without the victim so much as clicking a link or downloading a malware-laced file.

Time and again these weaponized vulnerabilities turned out to be in Apple's chat app, iMessage. But now it appears that Apple has had enough. New research shows that the company took iMessage's defenses to a whole other level with the release of iOS 14 in September.

At the end of December, for example, researchers from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab published findings on a hacking campaign from the summer in which attackers successfully targeted dozens of Al Jazeera journalists with a zero-click iMessages attack to install NSO Group's notorious Pegasus spyware. Citizen Lab said at the time that it didn't believe iOS 14 was vulnerable to the hacking used in the campaign; all the victims were running iOS 13, which was current at the time.

Samuel Groß has long investigated zero-click iPhone attacks alongside a number of his colleagues at Google's Project Zero bug-hunting team. The week, he detailed three improvements that Apple added to iMessage to harden the system and make it much more difficult for attackers to send malicious messages crafted to wreak strategic havoc.

“These changes are probably very close to the best that could’ve been done given the need for backward compatibility, and they should have a significant impact on the security of iMessage and the platform as a whole,” Groß wrote on Thursday. “It’s great to see Apple putting aside the resources for these kinds of large refactorings to improve end users’ security.”

In response to Citizen Lab's research, Apple said in December that “iOS 14 is a major leap forward in security and delivered new protections against these kinds of attacks.”

iMessage is an obvious target for zero-click attacks for two reasons. First, it's a communication system, meaning part of its function is to exchange data with other devices. iMessage is literally built for interactionless activity; you don't need to tap anything to receive a text or photo from a contact. And iMessage's full suite of features—integrations with other apps, payment functionality, even small things like stickers and memoji—make it fertile ground for hackers as well. All those interconnections and options are convenient for users but add “attack surface,” or potential for weakness.

“iMessage is a built-in service on every iPhone, so it’s a huge target for sophisticated hackers,” says Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matthew Green. “It also has a ton of bells and whistles, and every single one of those features is a new opportunity for hackers to find bugs that let them take control of your phone. So what this research shows is that Apple knows this and has been quietly hardening the system.”

Groß outlines three new protections Apple developed to deal with its iMessage security issues at a structural level, rather than through Band-Aid patches. The first improvement, dubbed BlastDoor, is a “sandbox,” essentially a quarantine zone where iMessage can inspect incoming communications for potentially malicious attributes before releasing them into the main iOS environment.

The second new mechanism monitors for attacks that manipulate a shared cache of system libraries. The cache changes addresses within the system at random to make it harder to access maliciously. iOS only changes the address of the shared cache after a reboot, though, which has given zero-click attackers an opportunity to discover its location; it's like taking shots in the dark until you hit something. The new protection is set up to detect malicious activity and trigger a refresh without the user having to restart their iPhone.

The final addition makes it more difficult for hackers to “brute force,” or retry attacks multiple times—a common technique in zero-click hacks if an assault doesn't quite work the first time. This protection is relevant to reducing those shots in the dark to find the shared cache, but also to attacks more broadly, like attempts to send multiple malicious texts (which are typically invisible to the user) to retry an attack until it works.

Independent researchers agree with Groß's assessment that the version of iMessage in iOS 14 is much better defended against these types of attacks.

“The mitigations are very welcome and appear to be intelligently done,” says Will Strafach, a longtime iOS researcher and creator of the Guardian Firewall app for iOS. “I would have hoped to see something like this sooner as iMessage is a big target for remote attacks, but it at least looks like they put a decent amount of care into this.”

Now that they're here, the improvements should make a big difference in curbing the rising tide of interactionless attacks against iMessage. But researchers warn that it's only a matter of time before attackers find a new spin on their stalwart techniques.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×