Apple has carried out lots of helpful applied sciences in its units to make it simpler to pair them with sure Bluetooth equipment, equivalent to AirPods and AirTags. Nonetheless, some hackers are actually utilizing these identical applied sciences to harass iPhone customers. With a comparatively cheap software known as Flipper Zero, they’ll spam iPhones with pretend Bluetooth pop-ups, making the gadget “unusable.”
Faking Bluetooth connections to an iPhone or iPad
For these unfamiliar, a Flipper Zero is a small, reasonably priced gadget that may be programmed to regulate a number of radio protocols.
As reported by TechCrunch, a safety researcher just lately demonstrated tips on how to use a Flipper Zero to carry out wi-fi assaults on Apple units equivalent to an iPhone or iPad. The hacker says the assault is “a Bluetooth promoting assault” as a result of it mainly causes the gadget to indicate a number of Bluetooth connection pop-ups to the person, making it troublesome to make use of the iPhone or iPad.
Extra particularly, what the hacker does is program the Flipper Zero to behave as an official Bluetooth accent, like a pair of AirPods. That is made doable as a result of these equipment depend on a protocol known as Bluetooth Commercials, which informs one other Bluetooth gadget close by of their existence.
As well as, code injected into Flipper Zero forces the gadget to repeatedly ship the pairing sign. Because of this, any Apple gadget close by will present the connection pop-up continuous. As proven a couple of weeks in the past throughout Def Con 2023, this can be utilized to harass iPhone and iPad house owners since there’s no technique to ignore these pop-ups.
iOS continues to be inclined to those assaults
In accordance with the safety researcher who spoke to TechCrunch, he developed this assault as a “proof of idea” to warn that Apple ought to present an choice to ignore Bluetooth connections with unknown units. Whereas iOS allows you to shut the pop-up, it is going to preserve displaying up so long as the accent (or Flipper Zero) is close by.
Extra alarmingly, the assault works even when the iPhone is in Airplane Mode because the Management Heart toggle doesn’t disable Bluetooth. The one technique to cease the assault is by manually turning off Bluetooth within the Settings app (which will even interrupt the reference to the iPhone proprietor’s equipment).
The researcher stated Apple might mitigate these assaults by making certain the Bluetooth units connecting to an iPhone are official and legitimate, and in addition decreasing the space at which iDevices can hook up with different units utilizing Bluetooth.
It’s unclear at this level whether or not Apple is already engaged on a technique to stop any such assault, as the corporate didn’t reply to a request for remark.
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