Apple claps back at Google for spreading FUD in iOS exploit report

It was simply final week that we coated a report by Google‘s Project Zero security researchers claiming they’d recognized a malware marketing campaign concentrating on iPhones for “at least two years.” When profitable, the exploit chain allowed iPhones to be compromised with no interplay from the consumer past visiting a malicious web site.

Now Apple is disputing a few of Google‘s claims in regards to the severity of those exploits in order to “make sure all of our customers have the facts.”

Apple goals a number of condemnatory feedback in direction of the Project Zero publish:

• Apple downplays the breadth of the assault, stating it was “narrowly focused, not a broad-based exploit of iPhones ‘en masse’ .” The assault affected “fewer than a dozen websites” related to the Uighur group.
• Cupertino admonishes Google for posting its analysis six months after it had already been patched. Apple says the publish “creates the false impression of ‘mass exploitation’ to ‘monitor private activities of entire populations in real-time,’ quoting Google’s own words in the Project Zero report. Apple accuses Google of stoking fear “among all iPhone users that their devices had been compromised,” when “this was never the case.”
• More particularly, Apple counters Google‘s declare that the assaults endured for “at least two years.” Apple says “all evidence” suggests the assaults have been as an alternative energetic for “roughly two months.”
• Apple additionally downplayed Google‘s function in fixing the bug in the primary place. While Google claims it gave Apple a “7-day deadline” (who knew corporations might assign deadlines to at least one one other?) to repair the exploit, Apple says it had been engaged on the issue earlier than Google ever approached it.

Apple is attempting to set the file straight – at least in its view – over the severity of the exploit and Google function in fixing it, implying it didn’t want Google‘s help. Moreover, Apple wants to make clear it’s nonetheless forward of the competitors’s safety as a result of it takes duty “for the security of [its] hardware and software.”

When contacted for remark, a Google spokesperson replied:

Project Zero posts technical analysis that’s designed to advance the understanding of safety vulnerabilities, which results in higher defensive methods. We stand by our in-depth analysis which was written to deal with the technical points of those vulnerabilities. We will proceed to work with Apple and different main corporations to assist preserve individuals secure on-line.

It appears to comes all the way down to a matter of perspective. Google appears to be claiming that Project Zero posts are aimed at technical audiences and is supposed to advance the business, however Apple suggests the publish undermined its broader popularity in cell safety by exaggerating the severity of the exploit.