Researcher Says Apple Ignored Three Zero-Day Security Vulnerabilities Still Present in iOS 15

[I7guy]

I never suggested that would happen. Also flippancy aside they don't need every single person to stop buying, just a number significant enough to get them to look into the root cause.

Sure. That would presume that many, many people have a like mind with regards to this. To me, that's a big presumption.

Companies usually only respond or change their modus operandi when they get negative press or sales or somebody clever has 'done the sums' beforehand. Whether it's hardware or software a company will release their product very likely knowing there are design faults or other shortcomings and they make decision as to whether the loss of sales/face is worth them holding or and fixing said issue(s).
When things genuinely catch them out how they react tells a lot about them.

Sure...I somewhat agree. Negative publicity that truly points out some abhorrent issues with a company's actions will undoubtedly have some impact.

 

[jweinraub]

Apple’s stance has always been “without us, you are nothing” to devs

wonder if the day will come that apple realizes without devs, they are nothing. Who wants an iPhone without any apps?

Microsoft understood. Steve Balmer understood with his infamous "Developers! Developers! Developers!" rant, but I don't understand why Apple refuses to acknowledge where things need to be improved. How does a trillion dollar company not have the resources to do certain things? Steve never wanted to release anything, delaying things long as it needed in order for a complete and polished product was the end result. The idea things are released unpolished, incomplete, and buggy and maybe one day we will fix it.

I thought them leaving Mac World meant they can release things on their terms so there aren't deadlines forcing bad decisions? Maybe there shouldn't be annual releases, I mean iPhones were originally a June release schedule, and now nobody seems to remember that thinking September is the magical month. How about no magical month, and release things when ready? If iPhone 14 needs 14, 16, 18, or even 24 months, so be it. I don't want a buggy device, and please don't make interim 's' device in between because you think you need the extra money, because Apple doesn't.

I just want Apple to remain being awesome, but more and more, the Apple of the 80s and 90s is lost on the current Apple. Most of the staff, especially the younger ones probably weren't even born when Apple was what the creatives used. Now it is more about status. Giving media personalities Apple Watches to show off how hip they are on TV.

I fear Apple being too popular when the iPod craze entered Windows computers and the stores followed and they become more and more popular that Apple wouldn't be able to keep up. I think my fear is coming true.

/rant

 

[coredev]

Apple’s stance has always been “without us, you are nothing” to devs

wonder if the day will come that apple realizes without devs, they are nothing. Who wants an iPhone without any apps?

And how is this related to the article that talks about security researchers and zero day exploits?

 

[Kilibee]

I am curious to know : is Windows optimized for displays that have their pixel density equivalent to Retina displays ?
Because those @2x images are ~4X as big as the original, it probably explains a good part of it.

Images make a very little part of these GB of data.

 

[Kilibee]

Steve never wanted to release anything, delaying things long as it needed in order for a complete and polished product was the end result.

Are you referring to Steve Jobs? Then you might be too young to remember that the original iPhone presentation was running on a handful of different prototypes and that he was claiming a lot at that day that was not finished yet.

He absolutely pushed for releases. „Real artists ship“.

 

[Kilibee]

As anybody who has submitted a handful or more bugs to Apple will confirm, they have a terrible culture of following up on bugs, and fixing stuff. It might get fixed eventually, but you hardly ever get a state change in your bug tickets.

Yes, this costs developer resources that are hard to get in the moment. Still, Apple must invest here.

 

[laptech]

I cannot see why Apple is causing problems here. If a security researcher finds a security flaw in iOS under the conditions of the bounty program, pay them because the alternative is that they stop researching, hackers find security flaws, exploit them and before you know it, thousands upon thousands of iphone owners begin complaining to Apple about their iphone being hacked and their personal data stolen.

 

[a_f]

Oh really? Is that "clear"? Are the "wheels coming off the cart"?

Because from my perspective, I see the M1 transition blowing minds. I see Swift turning into a major powerhouse. I see Macs making a major comeback in the marketplace beyond any time in the past 20 years. I see Apple counting stacks.

So which "wheels" are these that you're referring to exactly

This is poor quality thought, written to defend a company for the wrong reasons. Would you get on a 737 Max with catastrophic avionics issues just because it was "blowing minds" or because it was breaking sales records? Maybe "wheels coming off..." is not the best use of words, but worse, you miss the more important point.

 

[DesertDrummer]

This is poor quality thought, written to defend a company for the wrong reasons. Would you get on a 737 Max with catastrophic avionics issues just because it was "blowing minds" or because it was breaking sales records? Maybe "wheels coming off..." is not the best use of words, but worse, you miss the more important point.

Do I? What is the "more important point" you think I'm missing? I think a lot of people are expressing their opinions as facts, and I think that is "poor quality thought".

Let me clarify my thoughts for you: I do not believe the evidence supports that Apple is, in any tangible way, failing as a company under Tim Cook. I think that generalizing specific topics (such as the one originating this thread) into broader statements about the overall success or failure of the leadership at Apple is absurd and narrow-minded, and expresses one set of priorities that does not necessarily map to the priorities of either the company or the broader population.

I think, to use your own example, if everything was going amazingly at Boeing and then the 737 Max catastrophe occurred in isolation, it would be a ridiculous statement to then say that the "wheels are coming off the cart at Boeing over the last few years", rather than addressing the specific failings that created the specific problem. Of course we know that things at Boeing are *not* going amazingly overall, which lends your analogy a false sense of accuracy, but Boeing is most assuredly not in the same shoes as Apple today.

 

[PsykX]

Images make a very little part of these GB of data.

When I developped my app a few years ago, I didn't even have @3X images, it was just @2X, and I think my app tripled if I remember well.
So yes, bigger assets play the major part. Useless code is negligible.

 

[I7guy]

I cannot see why Apple is causing problems here. If a security researcher finds a security flaw in iOS under the conditions of the bounty program, pay them because the alternative is that they stop researching, hackers find security flaws, exploit them and before you know it, thousands upon thousands of iphone owners begin complaining to Apple about their iphone being hacked and their personal data stolen.

Zero days are bad. However, have you heard of thousands and thousands of iphone uses complaining?

Not to mention the story is written from the point of view of the researcher.

 

[LonderJan]

publicly outing security vulnerabilities because you did not get recognised or prioritised … nice

 

[Romain_H]

publicly outing security vulnerabilities because you did not get recognised or prioritised … nice

It is. Its the only possibility to force them to close the vuln. They had plenty of time; if they needed more, they could have reached out. Apparently, they chose not to.

 

[Schismz]

publicly outing security vulnerabilities because you did not get recognised or prioritised … nice

It's actually very nice. He could have just sold the exploits and made some cash.

 

[NMBob]

have you tried checking properties of the exe and setting it to run in compatibility mode to WinXP on Win7/10?

Forgot to reply! Yes. That doesn’t seem, to fix it. Now I’m wondering WHAT those settings actually do?

 

[expectdelay]

It could be said that if you know the names and personal information of a security researcher, well, are they a “REAL” security professional? I mean, they don’t even know how to keep their own information secure because of their STRONG desire to be a “thing” on social media.

I mean I know them. Not I am a twitter follower.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I mean I know them. Not I am a twitter follower.

Yeah, that’s kinda my point. There are millions of security professionals doing work that we don’t know. (Especially since I don’t follow any on twitter.) Those that are trying their best to get you to know them are… maybe… more security influencers than security professionals.

 

[MarvinK9]

Apple alone has insisted on this pointless constant march towards an "all new***" iOS version every year, when literally nobody wants that.

We all want features added over time when they are ready, sure. But more than that, people want things to get more polished, more optimized, faster, smoother, better, more well thought out.

Almost all of that is eliminated by forcing a full new version every year. The cycle of "fixing bugs" and "ironing out issues" never completes and then just restarts every Fall. It. Sucks.

You are inventing this concept of "full new version" as if it doesn't match with "features added over time when they are ready"

Can you define the distinction? They aren't starting from scratch every year! Just because they change a more significant digit in the version number doesn't mean it isn't exactly the gradual evolution that you want.

Btw, I'm not trying to make excuses for the bugs.. bugs happen, and for a company with the resource of Apple they should happen less.

 

[MarvinK9]

Apple software quality has hit the drain

Somebody posts this about literally every release of every piece of software from Apple for the last couple decades.

As software gets more complex it also gets more buggy. That's not likely to change (for any company) any time soon.
Yeah, it's a bummer.

Maybe they need to focus their machine learning efforts on trying to spot software bugs instead of showing me pictures of my dog?

 

[MarvinK9]

It's bad when Windows has a better rep for fixing bugs than Apple does.

explorer.exe - still a mess after how many decades? (i.e. still showing deleted folders that aren't there, still showing a tree view that is inconsistent with the panel beside it in the very same window...)

 

[WaltCD]

I wonder if this was fixed in the 15.0.1 update?