iPhones are rebooting to protect your data from thieves heres how it works

Date:
Mon, 11 Nov 2024 10:59:48 +0000

Description:
An iPhone left unattended for several days will reboot into a more secure mode, helping to keep your data safe.

FULL STORY ======================================================================iPhones in the possession of police have been mysteriously rebooting A report has confirmed that its a security feature in iOS 18.1 It's to protect your data from thieves, hackers, and others

If your iPhone gets lost or stolen, or otherwise ends up in the wrong hands, the last thing you want is for someone to access all your private data, which might include photos, bank details, account passwords and other sensitive information and a new feature in iOS 18.1 appears to be designed to keep
your data safe.

If your iPhone has gone unused for around 96 hours (or four days) since it
was last unlocked, it will automatically reboot, providing it's running iOS 18.1 or later.

Whats the purpose of this? Well, when an iPhone is rebooted, it moves from whats called After First Unlock (AFU) mode to a Before First Unlock (BFU) status. An iPhone running in BFU mode is more secure than one in AFU, making it much harder to crack or break into. The idea seems to be that this will thwart thieves who have your device and are waiting until they're able to get an unlocking device that will enable them to access your private data. Apple indeed added a feature called "inactivity reboot" in iOS 18.1. This is implemented in keybagd and the AppleSEPKeyStore kernel extension. It seems to have nothing to do with phone/wireless network state. Keystore is used when unlocking the device.https://t.co/ONZuU9zVt2 https://t.co/4ORUqR6P6N pic.twitter.com/O3jijuqpN0 November 8, 2024

Over the past week, this new feature has caused a lot of consternation among law enforcement officials. It was first cited in a case where a police forensic lab noted that a batch of iPhones that were awaiting forensic examination had all rebooted at around the same time, leading to speculation that Apple had implemented an unannounced security feature in iOS 18. While some initially thought that this could be an iPhone 16 bug thats been known
to cause devices to restart, fresh research suggests thats not the case.

According to experts who spoke to 404 Media , iOS 18.1 contains a new feature called inactivity reboot that restarts a device after around four days of dormancy. This was confirmed by Magnet Forensics Christopher Vance, who wrote in a law enforcement group chat that iOS 18.1 contains an inactivity timer, and that when this timer runs out, the device reboots, moving from an AFU state to a BFU state.

Apple has a long history of pushing back against efforts by law enforcement
to compromise the security of its devices, arguing that enabling a backdoor for police and other agencies would weaken the security of millions of innocent peoples devices, making it much easier for hackers to break into these products. After all, a backdoor for the police can be accessed by
anyone with the right tools.

In this case it seems more likely that Apples motivation is to protect its users data from thieves and more common mishaps. After all, its probably more likely that youll have a phone stolen than have it forensically examined by the police. Either way, Apples new feature should protect you in both cases. You might also like A newly reported iPhone phenomenon could be bad news for both cops and robbers I'm a privacy experthere are the 4 iOS 18 features I'm excited about Whats actually new in Siri in iOS 18.1? The Apple Intelligence upgrades explained and whats coming next



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphones-are-rebooting-to-protect-your-data-fr om-thieves-heres-how-it-works


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