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Earth Intelligence

28 Oct 2023 — 4 min read

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South China Sea Tension
iLeakage Vulnerability in Apple Devices

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South China Sea Tension:

President Biden has put China on notice, stating unequivocally that the U.S. stands ready to protect the Philippines in the event of an attack in the South China Sea (SCS). This region has been a hotbed of tension for many years, with China asserting control over more than 90% of the SCS and fortifying its position with military deployments.
The Philippines, along with other nations, has challenged China's claims, accusing it of flouting international law. The situation escalated this past Sunday when vessels from China and the Philippines were involved in a collision in the SCS, leading to a war of words between the two nations.
By Wednesday, President Biden took a firm stance, describing America's commitment to defending the Philippines as “ironclad.” This statement reinforces the longstanding treaty between the U.S. and the Philippines, in which both nations have pledged mutual defense support.

iLeakage Vulnerability in Apple Devices:

Researchers have discovered a security flaw in Apple's Safari browser that affects both iOS and macOS devices, potentially allowing hackers to access sensitive information such as passwords and email content. This vulnerability, named iLeakage, exploits a side channel in the A- and M-series CPUs, requiring significant technical expertise but minimal resources to carry out the attack.
The attack works by creating a website that, when visited by an affected device, can open another webpage and extract information from it. This method has successfully retrieved data such as Gmail inbox content, YouTube viewing history, and passwords saved in credential managers. On average, it takes about five minutes for the attacker’s site to analyze the targeted device, followed by an additional 30 seconds to extract a 512-bit secret.
The vulnerability is particularly concerning because it affects any browser running on iOS devices since they all use Apple's WebKit engine. However, on Macs, the attack is limited to the Safari browser. Apple has acknowledged the issue and is working on a fix, but no patch is currently available. This issue stems from a feature in modern CPUs called speculative execution, intended to enhance performance but has been the basis for various attacks in recent years.
iLeakage is a new variant of these attacks, using a race condition and the unique attributes of WebKit and Apple's silicon design. Researchers have overcome Apple's existing defenses against speculative execution attacks, making this a critical security concern. To protect oneself, it's important to stay logged out of sensitive accounts when not in use and be cautious about the websites visited, especially until Apple releases a fix for this vulnerability.

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