Security News > 2021 > May > Apple's Find My network can be abused to leak secrets to the outside world via passing devices

In short, it's possible to use passing Apple devices to sneak out portions of information from one place to another, such as a computer on the other side of the world, over the air without any other network connectivity.

Participating devices broadcast over BLE to other nearby attentive Apple devices, which in turn relay data back over their network connection to Cupertino's servers.

Bräunlein said his goal was to see whether the Find My network could be abused to carry arbitrary data from devices without an internet connection.

Nearby Apple devices with Find My broadcasting enabled will pick up these signals and relay them to Apple's servers.

Bräunlein said Send My essentially creates Amazon Sidewalk - Amazon's network for IoT devices - out of Apple's network infrastructure.

Because Apple designed Find My with privacy in mind - the network aspires to keep finders anonymous, to prevent the tracking of owner devices, and to maintain the confidentiality of location reports - Bräunlein believes it will be difficult for Apple to protect against this sort of abuse.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/05/12/apples_find_network/