- Apple quietly added a new iMessage security feature on iOS 14 called BlastDoor.
- BlastDoor is a new sandbox inside iMessage that receives and clears all iMessage content before being shown to the user.
- The security feature will prevent attacks via iMessage that may include malicious code for spying on iPhones.
One of the most important applications on any phone, regardless of model or operating system, is the messaging application. Most people are likely to use a collection of text messaging apps to keep in touch with friends and family. These apps have become highly sophisticated over the years, offering a collection of advanced features to enhance the chat experience. Whether iMessage on an iPhone, Google Messages on Android or WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and many others on both platforms, these apps offer essentially the same features. Many protect chats with end-to-end encryption and many support text messaging, file sharing, emojis, voice messages, voice calls and integration with many other applications.
But because texting is so popular on smartphones, it is also a great gateway for hackers who come with all kinds of malicious attacks that can spread via chat apps. And Apple is quietly facing this problem, a new report shows. The company added an amazing new feature to iMessage on iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, the kind of which we will never notice. It is called BlasstDoor, an appropriate name for what the resource should do.
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When Tony Stark asks for his IA Friday to activate the “Armed Door” protocol in Endgame, an armor shield surrounds the Avengers headquarters. That’s because they are about to try something never done before, which can lead to a huge wave of destruction. There is no guarantee that the armor will actually contain a potential explosion, but Stark is still trying. Marvel fans will certainly remember the scene, while others will not know what it means.
The essence of BlastDoor is similar. Everything that arrives via iMessage goes through a secure location designed to contain threats that hackers can include in messages. Highly sophisticated information bombs may allow hackers to attack unsuspecting iPhone users, but BlastDoor will now stop all of that. The new security feature is incredible, and it’s something that other operating systems and chat apps will no doubt copy. After all, hackers target all devices and programs, not just Apple’s.
Why Apple never mentioned anything about BlastDoor during WWDC 2020, when the first final version of iOS 14 was released, that’s understandable. This is Apple’s new move in an ongoing security battle with attackers. It makes no sense to show your hand when it comes to BlastDoor. It is not a feature that device owners will actively use or that iOS developers need to be aware of. Everything should work passively in the background, keeping everyone safe. If security experts, like the people working at Google Zero Lab, find out, that’s another thing – and hackers can also find out when they realize that their armed messages are not having the desired effect.
First caught by ZDNet, the BlastDoor feature was actually discovered by a Project Zero Googler.
Last year, a report showed that hackers attacked journalists using an iMessage code that allowed eavesdropping without the recipient having to do anything. But the problem was fixed in iOS 14, so Google researcher Samuel Groß decided to find out how Apple mitigated the problem. That’s how he found BlastDoor, a feature that works behind the scenes with iMessage content. It is a type of “sandbox” functionality, similar to other sandboxes on iOS. BlastDoor unzips and processes the content of all messages received in an isolated environment so that a malicious payload does not attack the operating system. In other words, all attachments and all code coming from iMessage, be it actual text, links or files, will be cleaned up within that closed environment.
If you haven’t yet upgraded to iOS 14, BlastDoor is an excellent reason to do so, especially if you are the type of iPhone user who may be the target of someone.
“Overall, these changes are likely to be very close to the best that could have been done, given the need for backward compatibility, and should have a significant impact on the security of iMessage and the platform as a whole,” wrote Googler. “It’s great to see Apple reserving resources for these types of major refactorings to improve the safety of end users. In addition, these changes also highlight the value of offensive security work: not only have some bugs been fixed, but rather, structural improvements have been made based on insights gained from exploit development work. “
Groß’s blog post detailing the new iMessage security feature is available at this link.
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Chris Smith started writing about gadgets as a hobby and, before he knew it, was sharing his views on technology with readers around the world. Whenever he’s not writing about gadgets, he fails miserably to stay away from them, although he tries desperately. But this is not necessarily a bad thing.