Does this mean that iMessage evaluates messages as code for some reason? Why on earth would that be the case? It's a foundational security principle to not do that.
And even if they did then why is that so hard to fix?
It’s more like, if you send someone a photo, iMessage will decode the photo and display it. If the imaging library has a bug a maliciously crafted image may be exploitable.
iMessage has more integrations than that too. If you send someone a URL, e.g., the recipient will see a preview of the content.
iMessage does a lot to mitigate the attack surface, but people still get through.
I imagine that iMessage isn't executing the code but the malware is packed into some part of the metadata that some dumb library needs to parse and some sort of buffer overflow attack is accomplished. The library is probably assuming the data is safe to parse.
kenferry|4 years ago
iMessage has more integrations than that too. If you send someone a URL, e.g., the recipient will see a preview of the content.
iMessage does a lot to mitigate the attack surface, but people still get through.
xvector|4 years ago
dannyw|4 years ago
moftz|4 years ago