At the popular Tianfu Cup, a hacking festival that takes place annually in the Chinese city of Chengdu, Kunlun Lab team managed to hack iPhone 13 Pro live and in just 15 seconds exploiting a vulnerability in Safari, Apple's web browser. And worst of all, this team wasn't the only one to hack the iPhone 13 Pro at this event, as others like Team Pangu also succeeded using a remote jailbreaking method.
Both hacks occurred in a context where no damage was intended to be done to any particular account, as in both cases the hacked iPhones were available to the competition and owned by the event. However, this is bad news for Apple, a company that for years has tried to convey the image that its native ecosystem is more secure than others thanks to the numerous features that seek to restrict its use, such as the fact that it is a closed source ecosystem or its exclusive use on hardware owned by Apple.
Apple users can't leave their security to chance
What both Kunlun Lab and Team Pangu demonstrated during the Tianfu Cup is that Apple's user data is not as safe as the American company claims, which reaffirms the position of specialists who argue the importance of using cybersecurity applications like professional antivirus to keep malware at bay, or a password manager to keep our digital accounts and their keys safe in an encrypted vault that is impossible to break by hackers.
Months of work to hack an iPhone
Despite the fact that the iPhone 13 Pro hack at the Tianfu Cup scene took place in a record time of just a few seconds, it is evident that those fifteen seconds were mainly due to months of work by the Kunlun Lab team to analyze all the possible iPhone 13 Pro vulnerabilities and its associated software. Breaking a spear in favor of Apple, The results of this competition do not mean that it is easy to find a way to hack an iPhone, but they do show that it is possible to do so and that, once a vulnerability occurs, it is possible to design a computer system capable of taking advantage of it to access all the data on any iPhone in just a few seconds.
Cybercrime is on the rise
While both the Kunlun Lab team and Team Pangu are white collar hacker teams, there are many other hackers who do not aim to participate in sports competitions but to actually attack and breach accounts and digital platforms for profit or simply for the purpose of causing serious harm to a business. Because platforms such as Google, Microsoft and many others increasingly emphasize the importance of having adequate cybersecurity systems to protect our accounts, paying special attention to the use of strong and unique passwords, as well as the activation of two-step verification systems.
Are Android Phones Safer Than iPhones?
The recent hack of the iPhone 13 Pro does not necessarily mean that iPhones are less secure phones than Android, but they are not invulnerable to hacks, so users of either system, both Android and iOS, should be aware that their phones are not capable of keeping their data completely safe if the appropriate cybersecurity measures are not taken. Despite the fact that both Apple and Google tend to develop security patches for their operating systems and for their native applications –especially their Safari and Chrome browsers–, new vulnerabilities can always appear, especially if we take into account that the software and hardware they are continually renewed and hackers never stop looking for new weaknesses.
Remember that the main barrier against cybercriminals is you
Although the hacks that occur at festivals like the Tianfu Cup they are held using extraordinarily complex technical toolsMost of the hacks that occur on a day-to-day basis take place using social engineering strategies such as phishing. Therefore, the prudence of smartphone users is a key factor when it comes to protecting their data.
Always check the legitimacy of the sender of your emails, make sure that you do not provide your private or access data on websites without an appropriate SSL certificate, and avoid the temptation to use public Wi-Fi networks without encrypting your connection privately. These prevention measures can be decisive in protecting you against possible hacks in the future.