| ▲ | Possible US Government iPhone-Hacking Toolkit in foreign spy and criminal hands(wired.com) |
| 131 points by alwillis 3 hours ago | 29 comments |
| |
|
| ▲ | oxfeed65261 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| https://archive.ph/r7jGc |
|
| ▲ | stock_toaster 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| With this administration? Color me unsurprised. |
|
| ▲ | happyopossum 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "Possible" stripped from the headline on HN. That word seems particularly important given that it's speculative: "Clues suggest it was originally built for the US government." |
| |
| ▲ | tptacek an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The Google threat analysis report doesn't say anything about USG involvement; that it was found on compromised Ukrainian sites, has code written in "native English", but also signs of LLM authorship. The Google report says the kit they found can't compromise current iOS, which is a capability you'd assume USG would have --- though it's important remember that "USG" comprises dozens of different buyers each with different toolchains. Maybe this was the Fisheries Department exploit toolkit. iVerify, which spun out of Trail of Bits and presumably knows what they're talking about, says it bears "hallmarks" of being connected to USG CNE work. I believe it. But the USG is on net a buyer, not a producer, of CNE tooling. Whatever a given service agency or IC arm buys, dozens of other aligned countries are also buying. (And, of course, the non-aligned countries have their own commercial supply chains). | | |
| ▲ | bri3d an hour ago | parent [-] | | I don't think the ancient nature of the exploit chain has much bearing on the origin. I think it points away from the actual 2025 campaigns being USG-attached, but I don't think anyone was suggesting that to start with - the Google report makes it pretty clear that they believe the same code was resold to several parties, either in parallel or sequentially, around this time frame. I think the notion here is that either: * There's a shared upstream origin or author between this toolkit and the Operation Triangulation toolkit ahead of the use in Operation Triangulation (ie - someone sold this chain to both the Operation Triangulation authors and a third party). I actually think that the uses of specifically structured code-names internally and the overall structure of the codebase described in the Google writeup make this theory less likely; building an exploit toolkit while using these practices to cosplay as a US-government affiliated engineer would be clever and fun, but it's not something we've really seen before. * This toolkit originated from (whether it was leaked, compromised, or resold) the same actor who was responsible for Operation Triangulation. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 12 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Right, I agree with you; my thing is mostly just differentiating between CNE enablement packages the USG itself creates vs CNE enablement packages that are on offer to every USG-aligned country, of which there are a bunch. |
|
| |
| ▲ | dang an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The title limit is 80 chars, if anyone wants to figure out a decent way to squeeze possibility back in there. | | |
| ▲ | irishcoffee 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | A US Govt iPhone-hacking suite is now possibly in criminal hands 15 chars to spare! | | |
| ▲ | dang 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I think the "possibly" is supposed to mean "possibly produced by the US government" | | |
| |
| ▲ | alwa an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | “Possible US-Gov-made iPhone-hacking toolkit is now in foreign and criminal hands“ ? | | |
| ▲ | dang 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | We try to avoid abbreviations if possible. You spurred me to take another crack at it and I think it worked this time? Happy to edit again if not... |
|
| |
| ▲ | Simulacra an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Good point, that was also struck by the comment that it's infected "tens of thousands" phones. That's a minuscule rounding error. |
|
|
| ▲ | mentalgear 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How could something as sensitive get out of an administration as competent as the current one? At least they have no access to lets say AI or autonomous weapons and the tools of mass surveillance ... |
| |
|
| ▲ | doctorpangloss 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| the government doesn't have superpowerful code crackers though it has a guy working at apple who introduces the subtle vulnerability he is instructed to do |
| |
| ▲ | tptacek an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I expect the evidence for this claim is axiomatic, which is to say that you think it sounds good. | | |
| ▲ | joshrw 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Hello, have you heard of the Snowden revelations? What OP was referring to are called bugdoors. | |
| ▲ | doctorpangloss 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | haha yeah, thanks for the compliment | |
| ▲ | lightedman an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, anyone who remembers the Best Buy/FBI debacle knows that this statement is very well-grounded in reality. If you took your laptop to Best Buy for repairs, the FBI got a copy of your hard drive contents. | | |
| |
| ▲ | 8cvor6j844qw_d6 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah. TAO was intercepting Cisco routers in transit and installing implants. The leap from supply chain interdiction to cooperative insiders isn't a big one. | |
| ▲ | thesuitonym an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Those two are not mutually exclusive. |
|
|
| ▲ | everdrive 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| No matter the risk, I must carry my smartphone everywhere and install every app. It would be unimaginable to have the urge to look something up, but then wait to do it later until I'm using a real computer. No negative outcome will EVER shake my deep, permanent need to carry a smartphone all the time and use it for as much as possible. |
| |
| ▲ | theearling an hour ago | parent [-] | | Webapps exist for a reason, they don't get all the special permissions apps get when fully installed. at the very least use a VPN / more secure phone like a pixel with graphene You keep doing you though | | |
| ▲ | thesuitonym an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | A VPN won't help you if your device is compromised. A VPN won't help you if the server is compromised. A VPN won't help you if the VPN is compromised. I really wish people would understand that VPNs are not magical, unbreakable security. VPNs are barely security at all, and commercial VPNs even less so. | | |
| ▲ | theearling 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | oh 100% agree here, I was just confused at the OP comments evangelism of installing and keeping his phone on his for those quick fix google searches |
| |
| ▲ | thewebguyd an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Ironically, the exploits in this leaked kit all involved flaws in webkit, so you'd have been safer sticking to native apps assuming they didn't have any webviews in them to load the malicious site. | | |
| ▲ | SpaceManNabs 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | WebView is the worst experience I have on any smart phone or mobile app. The fact that there is no option so that any webview by default opens in safari across all app in ios is horrible. i am not surprised it is riddled with security holes. |
|
|
|
