How Apple Lockdown Mode Could Keep The Worst Spyware Off Your iPhone

Apple’s press release notes that Lockdown Mode will thwart “highly targeted mercenary spyware” and namedrops NSO Group, a company it sued last year for unaithorized hacking of iPhones with the Pegasus spyware, which used an exploit called FORCEDENTRY. CitizenLab found evidence of this zero-click iMessage exploit and published its findings in October last year. In addition to iPhones, the exploit was also said to be effective against Apple Watch and Mac computers.

Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, praised Lockdown Mode and expressed that it will “help nurture independent researchers and advocacy organizations holding mercenary spyware vendors accountable.” Notably, Apple has added a new tier to its bug bounty program that will award a sum of up to $2 million to cybersecurity experts who find a flaw in Lockdown Mode. That’s the highest bug bounty that any company has to offer on the planet, claims Apple.

Even though Lockdown Mode is aimed at folks facing a tangible risk of state-sponsored surveillance, it appears that anyone can enable it. Activating the security feature requires a device restart. However, Pegasus is not the only spyware to have gone past Apple’s security firewalls. In February this year, Reuters reported that another Israeli company named QuaDream exploited the same set of vulnerabilities to break into iPhones using zero-click attacks. In fact, according to The New York Times, the FBI actually tested the Pegasus spyware on the U. S. soil for a few years.