Apple’s high-profile release of iOS 14.4, including security fixes for three critical vulnerabilities said to have been exploited by hackers in the wild, once again shows why enterprises need to deploy mobile threat defense (MTD) solutions.
Whether it is the Jeff Bezos hack or the ‘scariest iPhone hack ever,’ vulnerabilities open the door for hackers to initiate exploits, something only MTD solutions protect against.
According to multiple reports, including TechCrunch, “the technology giant said in its security update pages for iOS and iPadOS 14.4 that the three bugs affecting iPhones and iPads ‘may have been actively exploited.’ Details of the vulnerabilities are scarce, and an Apple spokesperson declined to comment beyond what’s in the advisory.”
Even with “scarce details” regarding the vulnerabilities, there are several points that should be addressed.
Mobile is always a target
This is yet another example of mobile being targeted in the wild, and why you need a solution that is built to detect threats throughout every part of the killchain (network/phishing/apps, etc).
The reality is, every day hackers are taking advantage of vulnerabilities. They are developing malicious apps, creating phishing campaigns and more, all in the name of stealing data, passwords, information and intelligence all found on mobile devices.
By September 2020, we had already recorded more mobile app breaches, failures, and data leaks than all of 2019. We detected a 6x increase in phishing sites in 2020 with hackers leveraging the pandemic and impersonating brands like Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon to dupe individuals. Scammers – masquerading as more than 25 different companies, brands and government agencies – used 265 Google Forms in an effort to steal user passwords and credentials.
Why are we seeing these increases in mobile cybercrime? Unfortunately, the bad guys know that many mobile devices – unlike laptops and desktops – are unprotected endpoints. These unprotected endpoints contain the same content as their protected brethren – all kinds of personal and work information, passwords, and data – and are now the de facto platform for productivity in business.
MDM, VPN and MFA aren’t the answers
All are great tools and serve specific purposes. Just not detecting these types of exploits. Mobile device management (MDM) is a management tool that works in concert with MTD. Virtual private networks (VPNs) provide access and secure the network connection, but are not built to protect compromised devices. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) provides zero protection in this context because it doesn’t assess the security posture of the device.
Why Zimperium
Zimperium is the global leader in mobile device and app security, offering the only real-time, on-device, multi-vector machine learning-based protection against Android, iOS and Chromebook threats. Powered by z9, we offer the most complete protection for mobile devices and apps against device, network, phishing and malicious app risks and attacks.
To that end, be sure to walk away from any company that guarantees protection, without first investigating the working exploits. The reality is, we don’t really have any information about the vulnerabilities themselves (as nothing was released besides “we patched this” and “it might have been exploited in the field”).
Whatever the exploit is, the attacker needs to get to the device first, this has to be done via phishing (which we’ll detect), a network attack (which we’ll detect) or an app (which in the iOS case has to be sideloaded – which we’ll detect). And even if the attacker managed to get to the device, their ultimate goal will be to gain persistence, which is something we’ll detect as well.
What we can say is we’ve detected 100 percent of zero-day device exploits in the wild without requiring an update or suffering from the delays and limitations of cloud-based detection or legacy security architectures – something no other mobile security provider can claim.
To learn more how we can help your enterprise, please contact us.
