/tech/ - Technology

A short while ago some people tried to hack Kaspersky, which is a famous IT security company. Obviously the hack failed because it got discovered. Maybe hacking a crowd of security experts was asking for it.

The hackers used an exploit/backdoor in the iphones from people working at Kaspersky. The important technical aspect was that it was a insanely long and complicated exploit-chain which included undocumented features in the chip-hardware/firmware. Many people described it as the most complex attack method in all the history of IT security breaches.

2 discussions dominated the IT Security scene.
1. Since kaspersky is located in Russia, many suspected it was the US doing cyberwarfare.
2. Many people debated whether the undocumented hardware feature was a intentional backdoor that either Apple or the US government put there.

I think that it doesn't really matter whether this was an intentional cyber-war backdoor or just a deep security flaw that sophisticated cyber-crime was able to find. The main lesson to be learned here, is that people were able to discover this insanely complicated method of gaining access to these phones. And the conclusion should be that we now have conclusive proof that there is no such thing as a secret backdoor that's only accessible to "vetted and trusted personnel"