SECURITY
Security flaw in Apple iPhone’s default Mail app
27 April 2020
Zero-day attacks
Security researchers ZecOps have highlighted a serious flaw in the iPhone’s native iOS Mail app, making it vulnerable to hackers.
The flaw is extremely valuable to a variety of bad actors, according to ZecOps who said: “These vulnerabilities are widely exploited in the wild in targeted attacks by an advanced threat operator.”
ZecOps said there were at least six suspected high-profile targets of the exploit. They include an executive from a mobile carrier in Japan and people from a Fortune 500 company in the US. The researchers, who have declined to name the victims for privacy reasons, also said they could not obtain the malicious code as the hackers remotely deleted the email messages.
If your company currently uses Apple Mail as your corporate email client and you’re worried about your email being modified, deleted or stolen, the email administrator may want to disable syncing to the email server or disable Apple Mail completely until Apple releases the patch in iOS and iPadOS 13.4.5.
Zero-day zero-click attacks
These zero-day attacks are exploiting the vulnerabilities within the native Apple Mail app without any user interaction (zero-clicks). A remote code execution (RCE) can be used by exploiting two of the native app’s processes. This is triggered by sending a specially crafted email to consume a significant amount of random-access memory (RAM), and putting the device into an unstable state that allows the exploit to execute.
Countering ZecOps’ assertions, Apple Inc said it found no evidence of cyber-attackers exploiting the recently discovered vulnerabilities in its Mail app.
Appurity recommends
We provide a range of mobile threat defence solutions, including MobileIron and Lookout, which are specifically designed to help organisations to effectively mitigate these and similar attacks.
If your company currently uses Apple Mail as your corporate email client and you’re worried about your email being modified, deleted or stolen, the email administrator may want to disable syncing to the email server or disable Apple Mail completely until Apple releases the patch in iOS and iPadOS 13.4.5.
