The other day I told you that the backups made for iOS 10 using iTunes are much easier to crack than those for iOS 9, the discovery being made by the company Elcomsoft. According to its representatives, iTunes backups for iOS 10 are up to 40 times easier to crack than those for iOS 9 through brute force attacks.
Basically, Apple has made some changes to the way backups are made for iOS 10 using iTunes, removing some checks for passwords that existed in the past. Without these checks, Elcomsoft can use Elcomsoft Phone Breaker software to crack iTunes backup passwords for iOS 10 up to 40 times faster.
According to Elcomsoft, the chance of success of an attack on an iTunes backup is 80% - 90% after the changes made by the Apple company in iOS 10. Considering that we are talking about a major problem, which puts Apple in a bad light after all its claims regarding the strengthening of iOS security, those from Cupertino acknowledged the vulnerability.
Apple admits that iOS 10 is easy to crack
In a brief press release yesterday, those from Apple say that they are aware of the security issue of the backups made for iOS 10 and that they are working on solving the problems. Apple says that this problem does not affect backups made using iCloud, so users should be safe from this point of view.
However, because an iOS 10 update is required, Apple recommends users change their computer passwords to make them harder to crack. In this idea, I think that iOS 10.0.3 is going to appear in the very near future to solve this problem, it could be released next week.
"We're aware of an issue that affects the encryption strength for backups of devices on iOS 10 when backing up to iTunes on the Mac or PC. We are addressing this issue in an upcoming security update. This does not affect iCloud backups. We recommend users ensure their Mac or PC are protected with strong passwords and can only be accessed by authorized users. Additional security is also available with FileVault whole disk encryption.”
