Apple Shuts Down Flipper Zero's Ability to Shut Down iPhones

https://gizmodo.com/apple-fixes-flipper-zero-shutting-down-iphones-1851102972

by mikece • 3 years ago

36 26 3 years ago

er4hn• 3 years ago

A better title might be "Apple fixes iOS bug that would let a single Flipper Zero perform Denial of Service attacks against every iPhone in it's radius."

atlas_hugged3• 3 years ago

Seriously. What a generous title.

Someone• 3 years ago

If you don’t know beforehand what “Flipper Zero” is, you can also see it as disingenuous towards Apple (“Big Evil Apple harassed another small company”, rather than “Apple fixed a security issue”)

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

More like "Apple patches easily exploitable bug after two years."

slowhand09• 3 years ago

i prefer "Gizmodo sensationalizes Apple bug fix by naming FlipperZero"

rtev• 3 years ago

Weeks after defcon, I saw they had a job listing asking for someone with Bluetooth experience and experience preventing denial of service attacks. Sounds like they finally hired someone that knew what was going on here.

whycome• 3 years ago

Does someone scrape and analyse Apple's job postings simply to make guesses about what's going internally?

trillic• 3 years ago

I’d be surprised if there weren’t multiple independent teams doing this type of work across the entire NYSE/NASDAQ.

dr_kiszonka• 3 years ago

I know that some tech journalists do it.

xkcd-sucks• 3 years ago

it's like kind of shocking that an org as large as apple would need to hire externally for fixing a security bug in existing stuff

Scoundreller• 3 years ago

Yes, but it also encourages orgs to put up/keep up non-existent job postings to look like they’re growing/expanding.

calamari4065• 3 years ago

It's wild that they'd hire someone to fix one very specific issue.

I guess that's what you get when you can just throw gobs of money at a problem.

mordae• 3 years ago

I love how cheap those CC1101 are! How come they are not more widespread?!

https://jlcpcb.com/partdetail/TexasInstruments-CC1101RGPR/C2...

Spamming at 2.4GHz is boring.

filterfiber3• 3 years ago

Better title: "Apple fixes BLE DOS attack".

I'm tired of media acting like the flipper is some kind of "super special hacking tool", it is very literally getting it banned in some places when all of it's internals are easy and common radios (Not to knock the flipper, it is conveniently well packaged).

You just needed to be able to send crafted BLE packets, this attack doesn't have anything specific to the flipper at all.

It didn't even originate on the flipper: https://github.com/ECTO-1A/AppleJuice

To run these scripts you need a Linux machine with an internal Bluetooth card or a USB Bluetooth adapter.

Versions also exist that run on the ESP32, android, etc.

matthewdgreen• 3 years ago

Portable devices like the Flipper make it very easy to distribute working RF-layer exploits that don’t get hung up on all the non-standard hardware in phones and laptops. And frankly, that’s a good thing! Because manufacturers have, for some reason, decided that if there’s a radio-layer protocol involved somehow they’ll be protected by the obscurity of it. The Flipper lets devs turn those vulns into push-button exploits, which is finally inspiring companies to clean up the crapware in those stacks. (And I bet there is scarier stuff in there that researchers just haven’t found yet.)

RockRobotRock• 3 years ago

Is this really a battle worth picking? Many friends and coworkers are going to bring up the Flipper to you in passing conversation, might as well get used to it.

smoldesu• 3 years ago

In my opinion, yeah. If anyone tries to deify or demonize the concept of a Flipper, you just remind them that everyone has a smartphone with even wilder SDR capabilities. The biggest difference is that the Flipper is weak hardware with wide-open software, and your smartphone is strong hardware with weak-ass software configuration.

Reminding people of that is important, even if you don't think the FCC is about to change their mind. Crucify us for being a nerd if you must, but someone has to be the voice of reason and point out that the Flipper is the most optional part of the exploit.

redeeman• 3 years ago

yes, and people shouldnt accept the media do what should be considered grossly lying. and dont forget, they do this, or whats way worse, to EVERY SINGLE article. You know about this because you're in this sphere, but when its about farm animals, you may or may not know, and then people tend to eat it up.

The mainstream media as it is now, and probably has been for a very very long time, is an enemy of the people, and should be treated accordingly

ajayh• 3 years ago

It's like FireSheep. Session hijacking wasn't new but it made easy and something anyone could do.

ksjskskskkk• 3 years ago

shoot the messenger.

since you have stocks of the billion dollar message

filterfiber3• 3 years ago

since you have stocks of the billion dollar message

I have no idea what you mean by this?

Are you saying I'm defending apple somehow?

Because my point is nearly every phone/laptop could pull off this attack, not just a single "special hacking device". Which I think is worse for them.

poulpy123• 3 years ago

I'm wondering what interesting things you can do with the flipper zero beside shutting off phones and TV ?

al_borland• 3 years ago

You could use it as a universal Amiibo for the Nintendo Switch or as a backup garage door opener.

Apple Shuts Down Flipper Zero's Ability to Shut Down iPhones

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