Apple warns 'extremely sophisticated attack' targets iThings

Apple has warned that some iPhones and iPads may have been targeted by an “extremely sophisticated attack” and has posted patches that hopefully prevent it. The patches fix a flaw in USB Restricted Mode, a feature Apple introduced in 2018 and which disables the Lightning or USB ports on iPhones and iPads if they’re locked for more than hour. Apple locks the ports to prevent attacks that involve connecting a cable to the ports. Once a user authenticates and unlocks a device, the ports come back to life. Now it appears such attacks remain a possibility, as Apple on Monday issued the following advice: A physical attack may disable USB Restricted Mode on a locked device. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals That’s unusually vivid language for an Apple advisory, as Cupertino usually uses terms like "may have been actively exploited" to describe flaws it feels may have been targeted by attackers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s assessment of the flaw describes it as “An authorization issue [that] was addressed with improved state management.” Whatever the nature of the bug, Apple has fixed it in iOS 18.3.1, iPadOS 18.3.1 and iPadOS 17.7.5. The updates are available for the iPhone XS and later, and plenty of iPad pro, iPad Air, iPad Mini, and vanilla iPad models. Apple’s mobile devices have been compromised with physical attacks before, sometimes using commer...