Apple goes to great lengths to keep its iOS platform secure, but a presentation at the upcoming Black Hat hacker conference will point to the unassuming charging port as its greatest vulnerability. The team of security researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology succeeded in building a proof-of-concept charger that can hack any iOS device in about a minute even if it is running the newest software version.
When they take the stage, the team will explain how the way iOS handles USB connections makes it vulnerable to exploitation. Using the custom prototype charger, the researchers managed to push arbitrary code onto iOS devices in mere seconds. This essentially means plugging an iPhone into a rigged charger could jailbreak it, or even infect the device with malware, thus bypassing all Apple’s security measures.
The proof-of-concept charger has been dubbed “Mactans”, and is based on a BeagleBoard mini-computer. The BeagleBoard is a low-power open source hardware platform from Texas Instruments. It’s runs on an ARM Cortex-A8 and come as tiny 3-inch square board. It’s a bit too large to fit inside Apple’s stock plugs, but there’s no reason the system couldn’t be miniaturized, or just mounted behind a USB wall plug. When not limited by time, this could be forged into a very sneaky and effective hack.
The BeagleBoard was chosen because it is simple to work with, and is very inexpensive — just $35-40 online. This makes the hack — even in its embryonic state — seem much more plausible. There are plenty of vulnerabilities detailed at these conferences that sound terrible, but require so much expensive equipment as to be unfeasible.
The Georgia Institute researchers will be on stage in July to offer up details of the vulnerability. At the same time, they will explain how users can protect themselves, and how Apple might make this and similar attacks more difficult to pull off.