Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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Do you research and develop exploits for iPhones, Android phones, or other software? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, on Wickr at lorenzofb, OTR chat at lorenzofb@jabber.ccc.de, or email lorenzofb@vice.com.
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Other than being spectacular, this vulnerability could actually have real world applications. According to a cybersecurity expert that just goes by Ray Redacted, it's possible "this exploit could be used to unlock like 90 percent of the phones currently in custody at police departments across the USA," given that those run older versions of iOS which still run code that contains the bugs found by Beer. Of course, developing something like this takes time, and incredible expertise. But Beer showed that with just a Raspberry Pi, off-the-shelf WiFi adaptors that cost a total of $100, and a few lines of code, he could have hacked anyone within a few meters. Beer challenged Apple, once again, to qualify the bugs he found for the company's bug bounty. Beer wrote on Twitter that these bugs could've been worth $500,000, and he'd love for Apple to donate the money to a charity. Congratulations to Beer for his future Pwnie Award.