iOS 10 New Bugs:Apple Confirms Weakened Security in Local iOS 10 Backups

iPhone Hackers Say Apple Weakened Backup Security With iOS 10
The iPhone’s latest iTunes backup password authentication mechanism used by iOS 10 makes its system particularly vulnerable to attack, but Apple said it has begun to repair work.

iOS 10 Allows for Brute Force Attacks of 6,000,000 Passwords Per Second to be Attempted on Local Backups

Apple admitted recently to an issue affecting the encryption strength for backups of devices on iOS 10 when backing up to iTunes on the Mac or PC and said a fix would be included in an upcoming update.

According to Elcomsoft’s latest survey results, the latest iTunes backup password authentication mechanism used in iOS 10 makes the system more vulnerable to compromise, according to the company specializing in access to iPhone data access software design.

It is understood that, Macbook or the PC side of the iTunes encrypted backup can be protected by a password, but through the previous data survey can be learned, but it is still possible to be some password cracking software to force crack. And the current iTunes system iTunes backup mechanism skip some specific security check steps, which makes Elcomsoft crack easier, speed can crack iOS 9 and the previous system version is probably about 2500 times faster.

Why Weakened Security in Local iOS 10 Backups?

If an attacker gets an iTunes backup password, it means that it has access to all the data on the phone, including all passwords and other sensitive information stored on the keychain.

At this time, according to the previous survey data can be found, compared to iOS 10 attack speed is about 2500 times the iOS 9. The following are Elcomsoft specific test results:

IOS 9 (CPU): 2400 times per second (Intel i5)

IOS 9 (GPU): 150000 times per second (NVIDIA GTX 1080)

IOS 10 (CPU): 6 million times per second (Intel i5)

Per Thorsheim, a security analyst from Peerlyst, said Apple has changed the original PBKDF hash algorithm to the SHA256 algorithm in its latest system, which has 10,000 iterations, the latter with only one, The situation has led to the attacker in the mobile phone system for violent attacks cracked when the speed can be greatly improved.

Apple recently in the “Forbes” issued a statement, they said in a statement: Apple has been aware of this problem, and has begun the restoration work, is working to solve this problem. “We know that the latest iTunes backup password authentication mechanism used in iOS 10 vulnerable to brute force, we are working to fix this problem, but this does not affect the iCloud backup security.” Apple spokesman said, “We advise users to make sure that Mac and PC are password protected and that only user-accessible settings are available, and that additional security can be encrypted using FileVault Full Disk.”

Apple for iOS 10 and Mac OS Sierra update, so the solution to this problem will be possible through a new version of the software patch, it is understood, iOS 10.1 and MacSierra 10.12.1 has been carried out earlier this week Beta testing.

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