Security News > 2022 > May > iPhones Vulnerable to Attack Even When Turned Off
Attackers can target iPhones even when they are turned off due to how Apple implements standalone wireless features Bluetooth, Near Field Communication and Ultra-wideband technologies in the device, researchers have found.
These features-which have access to the iPhone's Secure Element, which stores sensitive info-stay on even when modern iPhones are powered down, a team of researchers from Germany's Technical University of Darmstadt discovered.
While the current LPM implementation on iPhones increases "The user's security, safety, and convenience in most situations," it also "Adds new threats," researchers said.
"Since LPM support is implemented in hardware, it cannot be removed by changing software components. As a result, on modern iPhones, wireless chips can no longer be trusted to be turned off after shutdown. This poses a new threat model."
In the case of leveraging an RCE flaw, actors have a smaller attack surface but could still access data via NFC Express Mode, Bluetooth and UWB DCK 3.0, researchers note.
Even if all firmware would be protected against manipulation, an attacker with system-level access could still send custom commands to chips that "Allow a very fine-grained configuration, including advertisement rotation intervals and contents," researchers noted.