A rumoured backdoor in iOS has led to Apple denying it is working with the NSA.
According to Intego, a data forensics expert and jailbreaker has discovered what he claims to be a undocumented “backdoor” in the iOS operating system used on iPhones and iPads that could be exploited by the NSA and other law enforcement agencies.
Jonathan Zdziarski (also known as “NerveGas”) presented his findings this month at the annual Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference in New York. Although the Apple device you wish to extract data from needs to have been paired with a regular desktop or laptop computer via USB to create a secure encrypted SSL channel to exchange information, if an unauthorised party could get hold of that pairing information, then Zdziarksi claimed that they could begin an attack.
Apple strongly denied any suggestion that it had assisted the likes of the NSA by sneakily incorporating a backdoor into the iOS code. Instead, the company claims that iOS collects diagnostic and troubleshooting information for use by developers and enterprise users.
