Apple’s new hacker-friendly iPhones offer security researchers unrestricted access to devices so that they can easily hunt down vulnerabilities and bugs. But Ben Hawkes, technical lead at Project Zero, a team at Google tasked with discovering security flaws, says he’s “pretty disappointed” with Apple’s latest security program.
Hawkes, in a Twitter thread, said that its team won’t be able to take advantage of Apple’s “Security Research Device” (SRD) iPhones since it appears to exclude security groups that have a policy to publish their findings in three months.
Every time a security researcher discovers a vulnerability, they offer the company a period of time to patch it before it is publicly reported. Project Zero, like many security researchers, has a 90-day policy. However, Apple has kept the control of the timeline to itself and developers who sign up for this new iPhone security program have to agree that they can’t disclose the issues they find until Apple allows them to.
“If you report a vulnerability affecting Apple products, Apple will provide you with a publication date (usually the date on which Apple releases the update to resolve the issue). Apple will work in good faith to resolve each vulnerability as soon as practical. Until the publication date, you cannot discuss the vulnerability with others,” notes the SRD program’s sign-up page.
Project Zero is one of the most widely regarded research groups, and since early 2015, it has reported over 350 security vulnerabilities to Apple.
“We’ll continue to research Apple platforms and provide Apple with all of our findings because we think that’s the right thing to do for user security. But I’ll confess, I’m pretty disappointed,” Hawkes added in a tweet.
Apple’s Security Research Device program has been long overdue and was first mentioned last year at the Black Hat security conference by the company’s head of security, Ivan Krstic. Over the past year or two, iPhone’s security has been found lax and compromised on multiple occasions. The new program ensures eligible developers don’t have to go out of their way to hack into iPhones for research purposes and allows them to access the device’s core components to unearth any potential vulnerabilities.
Security researchers can now sign up to request an SRD on a 12-month renewable basis.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.