Developers got a pretty big surprise with the first preview release of
iOS 10. It turns out that the iOS 10 kernel, the heart of the operating
system, was left unencrypted by Apple. This is not only the first time
that Apple has released an unencrypted version of its kernel, but no one
knows why it happened, or even if it was intentional.
The
kernel of the OS controls how programs can use a device’s hardware and
enforces security, so there are a few possible results from this
release. First, it could mean more malware for iOS because bad guys will
have unprecedented visibility into the kernel code and be able to
exploit bugs they find. Of course, the flip side of that is that good
guys will have that same visibility, meaning they could find the same
bugs and report them to Apple for patching before a full release.
Lastly, it could be a boon to the jailbreak/mod community because this
kind of access could give new options within the notoriously locked-down
platform.
Whatever the results of the
release, everyone is confused as to why it happened. Some say that it
might have been a (colossal) mistake by someone within Apple and the
unencrypted kernel was never meant to see the light of day. However,
plenty others say that such a basic mistake is extremely unlikely within
a company like Apple, and it might have been on purpose in order to get
more bug reports and improve the overall security of iOS.
The
latter reasoning does seem more believable given how much Apple has
been pushing security and privacy recently, but Apple hasn't commented
on the matter so no one really knows.
source: MIT Technology Review
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