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Bug In iOS, OS X Allows AirDrop To Write Files Anywhere On File System

Posted by Soulskill on from the hide-and-seek-with-files dept.

Trailrunner7 writes: There is a major vulnerability in a library in iOS and OS X that allows an attacker to overwrite arbitrary files on a target device and, when used in conjunction with other techniques, install a signed app that the device will trust without prompting the user with a warning dialog. Mark Dowd, the security researcher who discovered it, said he's been able to exploit the flaw over AirDrop, the feature in OS X and iOS that enables users to send files directly to other devices. If a user has AirDrop set to allow connections from anyone—not just her contacts—an attacker could exploit the vulnerability on a default locked iOS device. In fact, an attacker can exploit the vulnerability even if the victim doesn't agree to accept the file sent over AirDrop.

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. The enabling technology, itself, is ridiculous. by Osiris+Ani · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course the bug is worrisome, but then, I consider the setting that allows it—leaving AirDrop open to everyone—to be a pretty ridiculous personal security flaw. Making one’s phone readily available to connections from random sources for the sole purpose of file drops doesn’t sound like something that should make the least bit of sense to even the average user.

    1. Re:The enabling technology, itself, is ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Except that's the only time it's useful.

      Anyone you actually know you can just email the file to and they can get at their leisure. The only time you'd ever use AirDrop is when sending or receiving stuff to or from people you don't have contact information for and who you don't want to share that info with.

    2. Re:The enabling technology, itself, is ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The only time you'd ever use AirDrop is when sending or receiving stuff to or from people you don't have contact information for and who you don't want to share that info with.

      So basically, “I don’t know you, or I don’t trust you enough to give you my contact information, but here-- put something onto my phone.”

      You’re lucky someone else beat you to it, because at least that makes your statement only the second-stupidest thing I’ve read today.

    3. Re:The enabling technology, itself, is ridiculous. by DougOtto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Um no. If you put your device in "fuck me mode" because you're worried about your privacy, your doing it wrong. I don't blame you for posting AC, I wouldn't want admit that asshattery either.

      --
      Solving Unix problems since 1989...
    4. Re:The enabling technology, itself, is ridiculous. by myowntrueself · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course the bug is worrisome, but then, I consider the setting that allows it—leaving AirDrop open to everyone—to be a pretty ridiculous personal security flaw. Making one’s phone readily available to connections from random sources for the sole purpose of file drops doesn’t sound like something that should make the least bit of sense to even the average user.

      The thing is, the iOS device is supposed to have a secure filesystem so that applications can't even share data via the local filesystem. And you can't just plug an iPhone into a USB port and drop whatever files you want on it, as if it were a USB thumbdrive. So iDevice users have been lulled into this sense of security that they can open up some space on their phone/tablet/iwhatever and that can't be abused, because Apple is so amazingly good at security. Except they aren't so oops.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    5. Re:The enabling technology, itself, is ridiculous. by Galaga88 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because I would have seen a prompt asking me to accept or decline a file. And I think it's safe to say that given the place I work and community in which I live, I have a better chance of having been killed in a traffic accident than somebody coming within AirDrop range and targeting me with an unpublished iOS vulnerability.

      Plus I just updated to iOS 9 which in all likelihood would have wiped out any nefarious stuff that had been installed by this mystery attacker-ninja.