Last night MacRumors posted a report which was promptly picked up by Boy Genius Report today that iOS 7 has a “serious” security flaw that disables the Find My iPhone feature. Here’s the description from MacRumors:
As one MacRumors reader noticed, Siri can also activate Airplane Mode, even if a passcode lock is set, allowing a thief to effectively disable Find My iPhone on a stolen device.
Okay. That sounds serious. But is it really that serious? Let’s think about this critically for a second.
- If this didn’t exist, a thief could simply pop out the SIM card and Find My iPhone would not work.
- If this didn’t exist, a thief could simply turn off the phone from the lock screen and Find My iPhone would not work.
So is the fact that Siri could turn on airplane mode which stops Find My iPhone from working any worse than the above? Not from my perspective. But if this does concern you, you can disable Siri from being used at the lock screen:
- Go to Settings
- Go to General
- Go to Passcode Lock and enter your passcode
- Under Allow Access When Locked, find the option for Siri and disable it
While you’re at it, you should also disable Control Center access on the lock screen as that has an option to turn on airplane mode:
- Go to Settings
- Go to Control Center
- Find Access On Lock Screen and turn it off
That make the phone a bit less convenient to use (for example, I tend to use Siri from the lock screen when in my car), but it does take this issue off the table. But someone with physical access to the phone can use the two methods that I described above to disable Find My iPhone.
Another thing that makes this discussion moot to some degree is the fact that iOS 7 introduced a new feature called Activation Lock that makes it impossible for anyone to re purpose an iPhone without your Apple ID and password. That will pretty much make the stolen iPhone or iPad useless to a thief.
So with all that in mind, I really think this is overblown. But you can be rest assured that Apple will slip a fix of some sort into a future iOS 7 release that takes this story off the headlines.
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This entry was posted on September 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, iOS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Why Reports Of A “Serious” iOS 7 Security Flaw Are Overblown
Last night MacRumors posted a report which was promptly picked up by Boy Genius Report today that iOS 7 has a “serious” security flaw that disables the Find My iPhone feature. Here’s the description from MacRumors:
As one MacRumors reader noticed, Siri can also activate Airplane Mode, even if a passcode lock is set, allowing a thief to effectively disable Find My iPhone on a stolen device.
Okay. That sounds serious. But is it really that serious? Let’s think about this critically for a second.
So is the fact that Siri could turn on airplane mode which stops Find My iPhone from working any worse than the above? Not from my perspective. But if this does concern you, you can disable Siri from being used at the lock screen:
While you’re at it, you should also disable Control Center access on the lock screen as that has an option to turn on airplane mode:
That make the phone a bit less convenient to use (for example, I tend to use Siri from the lock screen when in my car), but it does take this issue off the table. But someone with physical access to the phone can use the two methods that I described above to disable Find My iPhone.
Another thing that makes this discussion moot to some degree is the fact that iOS 7 introduced a new feature called Activation Lock that makes it impossible for anyone to re purpose an iPhone without your Apple ID and password. That will pretty much make the stolen iPhone or iPad useless to a thief.
So with all that in mind, I really think this is overblown. But you can be rest assured that Apple will slip a fix of some sort into a future iOS 7 release that takes this story off the headlines.
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This entry was posted on September 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, iOS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.