Apple’s “Discover My” community is a strong instrument that may assist customers find their misplaced or stolen units. It really works by utilizing a mix of GPS and Bluetooth alerts from different Apple units to pinpoint the placement of a lacking machine.
When a person allows “Discover My” on their machine, it begins sending out Bluetooth alerts in a continuing loop. These alerts are detected by different Apple units inside vary, which then anonymously relay their location to the proprietor by the “Discover My” community.
This course of may be very environment friendly, and it permits customers to find their misplaced or stolen units even when they’re offline. Nevertheless, it additionally introduces a possible safety danger.
Discover My community’s abuse
Researchers at Constructive Safety just lately found that the “Discover My” community could be abused by malicious actors to exfiltrate keylogged passwords. They created a proof-of-concept {hardware} machine that demonstrated how this assault could be carried out.
The machine, which is built-in right into a USB keyboard, combines a keylogger with an ESP32 Bluetooth transmitter. The keylogger captures passwords and different delicate knowledge typed on the keyboard, whereas the Bluetooth transmitter relays the info to the “Discover My” community.
The researchers discovered that they had been capable of exfiltrate knowledge at a charge of 26 characters per second, with a reception charge of seven characters per second. The latency of the assault diverse relying on the presence of Apple units inside vary, however ranged from 1 to 60 minutes.
This assault is especially harmful as a result of it is rather stealthy. The keylogger is hidden contained in the keyboard, so it’s unlikely to be found. Moreover, Apple’s anti-tracking protections will not be activated by the stationary keylogger.
Keylogger assaults will not be the one concern
Along with the keylogger assault, there are different potential safety dangers related to the “Discover My” community. For instance, an attacker might use the community to trace a person’s location with out their consent. Moreover, an attacker might use the community to launch a denial-of-service assault towards Apple’s servers.
Apple has not but made an official assertion on the topic. The large firm, which has just lately been a surplus in cybersecurity alerts to customers, is predicted to repair this vulnerability in Discover My community quickly.
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