The latest Apple-wide open backdoor was discovered by accident by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab on a Saudi civil rights defender’s phone. The Apple backdoor was being ‘actively exploited,’ for example, by Israeli spyware.
These actively exploited backdoors provided complete access and control on any iPhone, iPad, or Mac just by sending a picture. The user didn’t have to open or click on anything. The iPhone and its camera, microphone, etc. were simply completely remotely controlled by anyone taking advantage of these built-in backdoors.
When the backdoor went public, it became a marketing nightmare for Apple, which makes bold claims of privacy and security solely based on their ‘security by obscurity’ marketing model to give iPhone users a false sense of security. Apple has, of course, decided to patch it using a mandatory OS upgrade on all Apple hardware devices. Anyone who cannot upgrade or does not want to run the latest buggy version of iOS or macOS will be left at the mercy of a device that is completely unsafe to use.
The software can install itself on a phone without requiring users to click a link and gives the hacker complete access to the entire contents of the phone, as well as the ability to use its cameras and microphone undetected.
In usual fashion, Apple will not provide security fixes for devices they decide not to upgrade, and there will be no security fixes for older OS releases.
Apple has denied to comment.