New iPhone Security Features Is A Huge Upgrade

Buried in an ocean of flashy novelties announced by Apple this week, the tech giant also revealed new security technology for its latest iPhone 17 and iPhone Air devices. This new security technology was made specifically to fight against surveillance vendors and the types of vulnerabilities they rely on the most, according to Apple.

The feature is called Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) and is designed to help stop memory corruption bugs, which are some of the most common vulnerabilities exploited by spyware developers and makers of phone forensic devices used by law enforcement.

"Known mercenary spyware chains used against iOS share a common denominator with those targeting Windows and Android: they exploit memory safety vulnerabilities, which are interchangeable, powerful, and exist throughout the industry," Apple wrote in its blog post.

Cybersecurity experts, including people who make hacking tools and exploits for iPhones, tell TechCrunch that this new security technology could make Apple’s newest iPhones some of the most secure devices on the planet. The result is likely to make life harder for the companies that make spyware and zero-day exploits for planting spyware on a target’s phone or extracting data from them.

"The iPhone 17 is probably now the most secure computing environment on the planet that is still connected to the internet," a security researcher, who has worked on developing and selling zero-days and other cyber capabilities to the U.S. government for years, told TechCrunch.

The researcher told TechCrunch that MIE will raise the cost and time to develop their exploits for the latest iPhones, and consequently up their prices for paying customers.

"This is a huge deal," said the researcher, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive matters. "It’s not hack proof. But it’s the closest thing we have to hack proof. None of this will ever be 100 percent perfect. But it raises the stakes the most."

Jiska Classen, a professor and researcher who studies iOS at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany, agreed that MIE will raise the cost of developing surveillance technologies.

Classen said this is because some of the bugs and exploits that spyware companies and researchers have that currently work will stop working once the new iPhones are out and MIE is implemented.

"I could also imagine that for a certain time window some mercenary spyware vendors don’t have working exploits for the iPhone 17," said Classen.