[Ansil849]

It's not clear to me if Lockdown Mode would have prevented Hermit, the latest mobile APT which targeted iOS via sideloading by enrolling in the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.

The list of lockdown features don't seem to explicitly list that in-house app sideloading is disabled - is it? If not, then this mode seems like security theater from Apple, in that it doesn't actually lock down the parts of the attack surface that are actively being leveraged. How about instead, or better yet alongside this, Apple explains how they granted entry in the Enterprise program to the spyware company, and what measures they're taking to prevent it from happening again.

[_kbh_]

> The list of lockdown features don't seem to explicitly list that in-house app sideloading is disabled - is it? If not, then this mode seems like security theater from Apple, in that it doesn't actually lock down the parts of the attack surface that are actively being leveraged. How about instead, or better yet alongside this, Apple explains how they granted entry in the Enterprise program to the spyware company, and what measures they're taking to prevent it from happening again.

Im pretty sure that iMessage is one, if not the most targeted parts of the iOS ecosystem for practical exploitation. Disabling link previews and restricting the formats that are rendered likely renders this much more difficult.

The side loaded app would likely have to target non technical people as i'm pretty sure side loaded apps require lots of clicking through and trusting of certificates to get to run on a phone.

[jon-wood]

> Configuration profiles cannot be installed, and the device cannot enroll into mobile device management (MDM), while Lockdown Mode is turned on.

(From the article)

So this would have prevented Hermit as you'd need to install a new configuration profile to allow sideloading of applications from that source.

[Ansil849]

> So this would have prevented Hermit as you'd need to install a new configuration profile to allow sideloading of applications from that source.

Are you sure that's true? I haven't seen a Hermit sample firsthand, but from everything I've read about it targets did not need to install an MDM profile, they simply needed to click a link. Looking at Apple's distribution guidelines - https://support.apple.com/en-bw/guide/deployment/depce7cefc4... - MDM is listed as one option, and simply going to a link is listed as another:

> There are two ways you can distribute proprietary in-house apps: > > Using MDM > > Using a website

It seems like the latter was used, so I don't think installation of a custom profile was required, which brings me back to my original question of whether Lockdown would have prevented it.

[buran77]

An yet I wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that it's "security theater" because it only protects you from the vast majority of attacks and it may still be vulnerable to many 0-days. By this definition we have nothing but security theater in everything. And as the saying goes, if everything is security theater, nothing is security theater.

[Ansil849]

Lockdown is literally presented by Apple as being for people targeted by APTs like those developed by NSO Group, therefore I expect it to prevent attack vectors used by these APTs, like exploitation of the Developer program to facilitate sideloading malicious apps. I don't feel like this is an unrealistic expectation, and not having the mode actually do that amounts to security theater, which is a far cry from decrying everything as such.

[ylk]

> I expect it to prevent attack vectors used by these APTs

It does, it just doesn't close all attack vectors used by APTs.

They say[0]:

> Turning on Lockdown Mode [...] further hardens device defenses and strictly limits certain functionalities, sharply reducing the attack surface that potentially could be exploited by highly targeted mercenary spyware.

They don't say "turn this on and you'll be unhackable". They go on to say:

> Apple will continue to strengthen Lockdown Mode and add new protections to it over time.

So what they released in the current beta is just the start. They decided that releasing Lockdown mode with only some additional protections would be worthwhile to at-risk users and I personally agree. It's both true that Lockdown likely helps at-risk users (see reply by _kbh_) and still has lots of room for improvement.

[0]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/07/apple-expands-commitm...

[reaperducer]

It does, it just doesn't close all attack vectors used by APTs.

It's an ongoing problem with the pathological Apple-haters that they imagine that Apple says or promise something, and spread that falsehood all over the internet, when in realty Apple promised no such thing. They see what they want to see.

In addition to the thread above, another example is the dozens and dozens of times on HN where they claim that Apple promises that its app review process will keep 100% of malware out of the App Store. Apple doesn't make that claim. It says that app store reviews help prevent malware.

It's like discussing politics at the Thanksgiving table. People hear what they want to hear.

[_kbh_]

> Lockdown is literally presented by Apple as being for people targeted by APTs like those developed by NSO Group, therefore I expect it to prevent attack vectors used by these APTs, like exploitation of the Developer program to facilitate sideloading malicious apps. I don't feel like this is an unrealistic expectation, and not having the mode actually do that amounts to security theater, which is a far cry from decrying everything as such.

These APTs overwhelming use RCE vectors that are less obvious then side loading apps, iMessage is probably the most popular and I would hazard a guess that other popular messaging applications (WeChat, signal, telegram, etc) and safari would be next.

[olliej]

Running an enterprise app still is not a trivial single tap on iOS.

Obviously with the new EU legislation mandating support for unrestricted malware of this kind, that's kind of a moot factor in EU and EU-adjacent markets.

[Ansil849]

> Running an enterprise app still is not a trivial single tap on iOS.

Yes, but still successful, as Hermit demonstrated. So my question is whether Lockdown mode would have prevented APTs like Hermit which it claims to prevent against. If not, then the move is security theater which doesn't address the actual flaws (like poor vetting into the Enterprise Program) being successfully leveraged in the wild.

[olliej]

I had a more detailed reply to an earlier post you made - but the summary is "What constitutes an enterprise that should be allowed to have 'enterprise apps'"

[Ansil849]

> "What constitutes an enterprise that should be allowed to have 'enterprise apps'"

Apple has a list of requirements - https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/ - for example, a company needs to have at least 100 employees. The issue, however, seems to be how stringently these requirements are enforced, or whether they are at all. In the case of Hermit, the Italian spyware company seems to have created a fake company and tricked Apple into granting the fake company access to the developer program. Now, the interesting question for me is whether the fake company actually managed to pass all of the requirements, like giving Apple a list of 100 fake employees, and whether Apple actually performed their due dilligence and checked whether the employee list was real, or whether they accepted it at face value, or didn't even require it.

In other words, I think a key takeaway from the latest incident is Apple needs to take accountability and harden their Enterprise program entry requirements, and I haven't seen anything about that being the case.

[olliej]

I will try to rephrase this.

"What is Apple doing to prevent any government contractor from being able to use enterprise apps?"

Which is what you're actually asking. "Spyware" sounds like you're conflating with its traditional meaning of being a general consumer malware/virus plague. This is software made by companies that provide services and support for [among others] intelligence agencies, etc for actual targeted spying.

If you disagree with that being the actual question, then you're saying that having access to the enterprise is dependent on Apple auditing your entire company, its corporate hierarchy, its owners, and its executives - at least. That isn't going to be cheap, it isn't going to be fast, I'm sure you'd not be happy as a company to find distributing internal apps suddenly requires regular expensive audits, or as an employee to discover your employer now required you to agree to background checks, etc by Apple.

The whole, and it seems only, reason for the enterprise program was so companies ("enterprises" in marketing) could have internal apps that didn't have to pass the App Store review process.

It would have been vastly easier to convince a victim to install a piece of software from the App Store, but that would not have worked because despite naysayers the App Store as a first step in platform security works. Otherwise there would be unending stories of malware on HN :D

[ajconway]

High-level targets (for whom this mode is specifically advertised) are likely aware of the dangers of installing apps.

Enterprise-signed apps require an explicit (and non-obvious) action from the user when running for the first time.

[Ansil849]

> High-level targets (for whom this mode is specifically advertised) are likely aware of the dangers of installing apps.

I firstly don't believe this is true at all, plenty of high-level targets are not tech savvy; but more to the point of Lockdown mode, you could then say the same thing about most of its other features ("High-level targets are likely to already be aware of the dangers of doing $thing_Lockdown_prevents").

[saagarjha]

The features lockdown mode disabled are used in 0- and 1-click attacks. Installing an enterprise app is somewhat different.

[olliej]

The whole benefit of the iOS App Store system is that those apps can't be malicious.

This requires an atypical install/launch process that you'd hopefully trigger some sense of "this isn't right" - similar to the macOS complaints when you choose to run an unsigned app.

[liberia]

The ‘high level target’ or person of interest thing is slightly absurd. Everyone is a person of interest and security shouldn’t be only for the domain of journalists, activists, dissidents etc