Apple Awards Hacker $75,000 for iPhone, Mac Camera Exploits



Apple awarded $75,000 to a hacker who found exploits that allowed him to hijack the cameras of iPhones and Macs.
Safety researcher and former Amazon Net Providers safety engineer Ryan Pickren disclosed at the very least seven zero-day vulnerabilities in Safari to Apple, based on Forbes. Three of those vulnerabilities could also be used to hijack the cameras of iOS and macOS gadgets.
The exploit required victims to go to a malicious web site, which might then entry their system’s digicam if it had beforehand trusted a video conferencing service reminiscent of Zoom.
“A bug like this exhibits why customers ought to by no means really feel completely assured that their digicam is safe,” Pickren instructed Forbes, “no matter working system or producer.”
Pickren knowledgeable Apple about his discovery in mid-December 2019. Apple validated all seven vulnerabilities, and after a number of weeks, launched a repair for the iOS and macOS digicam exploit. The safety researcher was then paid $75,000, which Pickren mentioned was his first earnings from the corporate.
Safety researcher Sean Wright instructed Forbes that the exploit that Pickren found, even when it required the sufferer to go to a malicious web site, was “a really viable type of assault.” Wright added that in contrast with the eye on webcams in computer systems, there has not been a lot give attention to the cameras and microphones of cell phones, which he mentioned is “a much more probably route” for attackers in the event that they need to listen in on their targets.

Bug bounties

Bug bounty applications present incentives to safety researchers to assist tech firms discover vulnerabilities of their software program, as an alternative of the exploits falling into the fingers of malicious hackers.
Apple, which launched a bug bounty program in 2016, made modifications in August 2019 that included the addition of a $1 million reward for hackers who might launch a “zero-click full chain kernel execution assault with persistence.” In December 2019, this system was lastly expanded to just accept submissions for macOS bugs.
Apple rival Google has additionally been beneficiant with its bug bounty program, with an as much as $1.5 million reward for “full chain distant code execution exploit with persistence which compromises the Titan M safe aspect on Pixel gadgets.” In 2019, Google paid a complete of $6.5 million in bug bounties, for a complete of $21 million because the program was launched in 2010.

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