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Posts tagged with "security"

Apple Challenges UK’s Demand for iCloud ‘Back Door’→

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Apple has filed a complaint against the UK government seeking to overturn a secret order demanding that it create “back door” access to iCloud. Apple has not commented on whether it received an order because doing so would violate UK law. Instead, the company announced that it would remove Advanced Data Protection, the feature that enables end-to-end iCloud encryption, from the devices of UK customers. However, that move did not end the dispute because the UK order reportedly applies not just to the iCloud accounts of UK citizens but also anyone outside the UK that British security services have a judicial warrant to investigate.

The Financial Times’ sources say that Apple has appealed the British government’s order to the Investigatory Power Tribunal, a judicial body that handles disputes with UK security services. If accurate, the challenge is believed to be the first of its kind. The Financial Times further reports that a hearing on Apple’s challenge to the order may take place as early as this month, although it is unclear to what degree the hearing will be made public.

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Apple to Eliminate Advanced Data Protection for iCloud Accounts in the UK→

A couple of weeks ago, I linked to a report from The Washington Post, which said that the UK government has demanded that Apple create a back door to access the encrypted iCloud data of Apple’s customers. Today, instead of creating the access the UK demanded, Apple announced it will remove Advanced Data Protection for its UK customers, which is the feature that allows users to end-to-end encrypt their iCloud data.

In doing so, Apple told 9to5Mac:

Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature. ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices. We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy. Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before. Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom. As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will.

This is a real shame to see and something I hope doesn’t spread to other countries, but I’m not optimistic that will be the case.

UK users who have enabled Advanced Data Protection will need to disable it to continue using their iCloud accounts. More details on the process and time frame for doing so are expected from Apple soon.

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The UK Demanded That Apple Grant It Access to Encrypted Storage Globally→

Joseph Menn, writing for The Washington Post:

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.

Menn reports that in response, Apple will likely stop offering encrypted storage in the UK. That does not, however, address the order’s demand for access to storage in other countries.

The UK order reportedly applies to Advanced Data Protection, an end-to-end encryption feature added by Apple in 2022 that ensures that not even Apple has access to users’ cloud storage. Apple is not commenting presumably because to do so would be a criminal violation under UK law, but it did comment in 2024 when given a draft of the order, that has now been issued:

During a debate in Parliament over amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act, Apple warned in March that the law allowed the government to demand back doors that could apply around the world. “These provisions could be used to force a company like Apple, that would never build a back door into its products, to publicly withdraw critical security features from the UK market, depriving UK users of these protections,” it said in a written submission.

As Menn points out, even the F.B.I., which has pressured Apple to offer backdoor access to its encrypted services in the past, recently endorsed the use of encrypted services to counter recent hacks of U.S. communications systems.

I don’t think any government should have this sort of access over their citizens’ data, but the UK law is particularly egregious because it applies worldwide. Tech companies have faced government pressure for this sort of access for years. On the surface, it may seem like a good way to ‘catch the bad guys,’ but once the backdoor is created, there’s no way to ensure it will be used only by ‘the good guys.’

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iMessage Is Preparing for a Post-Quantum Computing World→

Yesterday, Apple’s Security Research website published a report on a cryptographic security upgrade coming to iMessage with the release of iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, and watchOS 10.4 called PQ3. It’s a forward-looking, preemptive upgrade that anticipates a future where quantum computers will be able to defeat today’s cryptographic security with ease. That day isn’t here yet, but PQ3 is rolling out with the next series of Apple’s OS updates to protect against a scenario known as Harvest Now, Decrypt Later where bad actors collect vast amounts of encrypted data today, anticipating a future where it can be decrypted by quantum computers.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

If you’ve heard the term quantum computing thrown around in the past and don’t know what it is, I highly recommend a couple of explainer articles by the MIT Technology Review that cover both quantum computers and post-quantum cryptography.1 But if the details don’t interest you, the bottom line is that PQ3 is being added to iMessage today in anticipation of a day in the future where today’s end-to-end encryption techniques don’t work anymore. Here’s how Apple’s paper explains it:

Historically, messaging platforms have used classical public key cryptography, such as RSA, Elliptic Curve signatures, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange, to establish secure end-to-end encrypted connections between devices. All these algorithms are based on difficult mathematical problems that have long been considered too computationally intensive for computers to solve, even when accounting for Moore’s law. However, the rise of quantum computing threatens to change the equation. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could solve these classical mathematical problems in fundamentally different ways, and therefore — in theory — do so fast enough to threaten the security of end-to-end encrypted communications.

Although quantum computers with this capability don’t exist yet, extremely well-resourced attackers can already prepare for their possible arrival by taking advantage of the steep decrease in modern data storage costs. The premise is simple: such attackers can collect large amounts of today’s encrypted data and file it all away for future reference. Even though they can’t decrypt any of this data today, they can retain it until they acquire a quantum computer that can decrypt it in the future, an attack scenario known as Harvest Now, Decrypt Later.

PQ3 protects against a post-quantum world by setting up an iMessage conversation with a new post-quantum public key system and then periodically updating the keys so that if the keys are compromised, it won’t compromise the entire conversation. The system also uses existing cryptographic algorithms for portions of the encryption process that aren’t vulnerable to a Harvest Now, Decrypt Later scenario.

There is a lot of additional detail in Apple’s report, as you can imagine, including information about the review process that the new system has undergone and the way it is applied to iMessage in particular, which explains the design considerations that were necessary to apply these cryptographic techniques at the scale of iMessage in a way that doesn’t compromise users’ experience.

There’s more to be done to ramp up iMessage’s security even further as we approach a world where quantum computers are a threat to traditional cryptography. However, as Apple’s report concludes, with the imminent OS updates, iMessage will be “the global state of the art for protecting messages against Harvest Now, Decrypt Later attacks and future quantum computers.”

I’ve heard iMessage security get thrown under the bus a lot lately as an excuse Apple uses to protect its market dominance. There’s no reason that protecting customer communications and market-share can’t both be true. However, I think you’d be hard-pressed to read a report like this one and not come away believing that customer privacy and security are also a sincere goals at Apple.

  1. Yes, these are the sorts of articles I save in my read-later app. It’s a fascinating topic that also helps me fall asleep at night, so it’s a win all around. ↩︎
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iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma Expand Password Management and Access System-Wide

Passwords permeate our lives. With an ever-growing number of sites, services, and apps to log into, people need help generating, managing, and accessing them. There are excellent third-party apps that can help, but the reality is that most people aren’t going to download a third-party app, and even fewer are likely to pay for one. That’s why Apple’s work with passwords is so important.

However, what makes that work impressive is the lengths to which the company has gone to make good password practices easy for users. The password updates to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma are fantastic examples, making it easier than ever to share passwords and for users to begin adopting passkeys, a superior method of authentication compared to traditional passwords.

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Apple and Google Submit Spec to Industry Group Addressing Unwanted Use of Item Trackers

As useful as they are for finding misplaced belongings, AirTags and other item location trackers are also misused to track people. Today, Apple and Google announced a joint effort aimed at creating an industry standard to combat unwanted tracking. According to a press release from Apple:

Today Apple and Google jointly submitted a proposed industry specification to help combat the misuse of Bluetooth location-tracking devices for unwanted tracking. The first-of-its-kind specification will allow Bluetooth location-tracking devices to be compatible with unauthorized tracking detection and alerts across iOS and Android platforms. Samsung, Tile, Chipolo, eufy Security, and Pebblebee have expressed support for the draft specification, which offers best practices and instructions for manufacturers, should they choose to build these capabilities into their products.

Apple says that the spec, which has been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), incorporates input from device manufacturers as well as safety and advocacy groups.

Erica Olsen, the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s senior director of its Safety Net Project, said of the companies’ efforts:

This collaboration and the resulting standards are a significant step forward. NNEDV is encouraged by this progress. These new standards will minimize opportunities for abuse of this technology and decrease the burden on survivors in detecting unwanted trackers. We are grateful for these efforts and look forward to continuing to work together to address unwanted tracking and misuse.

The full specification is available on the IETF’s Datatracker website.

1Password Announces Plans to Adopt Passkeys→

Today, 1Password announced that it’s moving to a passkey-based system for unlocking its password manager app. Using a password manager like 1Password already means not having to remember passwords for every site and service you use because it locks your passwords behind a single, hard-to-guess password. With passkeys, that single password approach will become a thing of the past, allowing users to access their passwords through biometric-based passkeys generated locally on their devices.

1Password’s new passkey feature is coming this summer. The company explains how passkeys differ from the way the app works today:

Now, unlocking 1Password without a password is nothing new. It’s something we do every day using biometrics. 1Password was the first third-party iOS app to offer Touch ID, all the way back in 2014, and since then we’ve added support for Face ID, Windows Hello, Android Fingerprint, and more.

But as convenient as biometrics are today, they don’t actually replace the password; they only mask it. That’s why 1Password asks you to type in your password periodically in order to ensure that you have it memorized.

Passkeys also use biometrics, but they allow us to go farther and eliminate the underlying password entirely.

By replacing passwords with passkeys, 1Password will be able to preserve the benefits of biometrics while eliminating the need to ever use a password to access the app’s data, no matter what platform you use.

Passkeys are a big deal for security. The apps, sites, and services you use may not adopt passkeys for a while, but with 1Password doing so, the passwords you still need to use will be protected better than before. I know I’ll be switching to this system as soon as it’s available.

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Apple Has Stopped Development of System to Identify Child Sexual-Abuse Material→

Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal, who interviewed Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, in connection with the new security features coming to its platforms, reports that Apple has abandoned its efforts to identify child sexual-abuse materials in its devices. According to Stern:

Last year, Apple proposed software for the iPhone that would identify child sexual-abuse material on the iPhone. Apple now says it has stopped development of the system, following criticism from privacy and security researchers who worried that the software could be misused by governments or hackers to gain access to sensitive information on the phone.

Federighi told Stern:

 Child sexual abuse can be headed off before it occurs. That’s where we’re putting our energy going forward.

Apple also told The Wall Street Journal that Advanced Data Protection that allows users to opt into end-to-end encryption of new categories of personal data stored in iCloud, will be launched in the US this year and globally in 2023.

For an explanation of the new security protections announced today, be sure to catch Joanna Stern’s full interview with Craig Federighi.

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