Your iPhone would not be protected from viruses even if you turn it off

You thought that once turned off, your iPhone was safe from malware? Bad news…

Indeed, researchers indicate that the Lower Power Mode of the iPhone was actually vulnerable.

iPhone vulnerable even when turned off?

While one might (rightly) think that a smartphone is invulnerable to a software attack once turned off, this is unfortunately not entirely correct. Indeed, when you “turn off” your smartphone, it goes into Low Power Mode, to allow it to keep certain features active.

Today, a team of security researchers has succeeded in demonstrating that an iPhone can be infected with malware, even if the latter is on “ Off “. This would pass through the LPM chip of the iPhone, despite its relative power.

The researchers thus explain that the malware would be able to exploit a flaw in the Bluetooth chip of the iPhone. Even on a powered off smartphone, the malware would be able to perform various operations, and even worse, this vulnerability could not be patched via an update.

“ Since Low Power Mode support is based on iPhone hardware, it cannot be removed with system updates. Thus, it has a lasting effect on the security model of iOS “say the researchers.

The full results of this new research will be presented this week at the Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec 2022). Let us recall that among the functions integrated into the Low Power Modewe find in particular “Locate”.

Source : The Hacker News