Kaspersky expert suddenly warns that iMessage is no longer “invulnerable”, 258 million iPhone users may be at risk

Recently, based on signs of abnormal activity from some iPhones owned by Kaspersky employees, the famous security software manufacturer and distributor has suspected that they are infected by a malicious code. poison.

Since it was not possible to inspect the iPhones from the inside, Kaspersky created offline backups of the devices it suspected.

And after finding evidence of the intrusion, Kaspersky said that this seems to be an operation planned by cybercriminals aimed directly at the iPhone and can be called by the name “Operation Triangulation”. sense).

Illustration “Operation Triangulation” by Kaspersky.

How is malicious code distributed to the iPhone?

It is known that empty iMessage messages with malicious code will be sent by cybercriminals to targeted iPhones.

It is worth noting that despite the user not doing anything related to the message (interaction), the malicious code still exploits a vulnerability in iOS to install spyware.

The iPhone’s Control Center then sends a number of requests to the user to grant more permissions to the spyware – giving it unrestricted access, collecting the owner’s personal data as well. like the location of the phone.

More dangerously, the original blank iMessage message will also be deleted – leaving most victims likely never knowing that their iPhone has been infected.

Is it possible to “clean” infected iPhones?

One indicator of the presence of this spyware on an iPhone is that users will not be able to update iOS.

And since iOS updates have been blocked, the only way for users to get rid of spyware is to restore iPhone to factory settings and download the latest iOS version – which could put the phone at risk. data is lost.

But this method may not work on some older iPhone models that are no longer supported by Apple to update iOS.

Kaspersky notes that “Operation Triangulation” has been active since 2019 and is still ongoing.

It seems that only iPhones running iOS 15.7 or later are vulnerable – and according to new data released by Apple, 80.1% of iPhone users are already using iOS 16 – so most iPhone owners don’t have one. what to worry about.

But with an estimated 1.36 billion active iPhones in the world – some 258 million users are still at risk of being targeted by cybercriminals.