Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
iOS malware: myth or reality?
Search
Julien Bachmann
June 08, 2016
Technology
2
1.3k
iOS malware: myth or reality?
talk given at Security B-Sides London
Julien Bachmann
June 08, 2016
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Julien Bachmann
See All by Julien Bachmann
Advanced exploitation on Linux: ROP and infoleaks
milkmix
3
3.5k
Elasticsearch: incident detection use-cases and security best practices
milkmix
1
1.3k
Using Z3 to solve crackme
milkmix
0
2k
Software exploitation : ROP
milkmix
2
550
Clusis Campus 2015 : introduction to Suricata IDS
milkmix
0
260
String format exploitation in 15"
milkmix
1
320
Reversing iOS/OSX malware : wirelurker
milkmix
1
370
import-module IncidentResponse
milkmix
0
130
iOS applications auditing
milkmix
0
130
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
Foundation Model × VisionKit で実現するローカル OCR
sansantech
PRO
0
290
Rubyの国のPerlMonger
anatofuz
3
730
Amazon Q Developerを活用したアーキテクチャのリファクタリング
k1nakayama
2
180
Lambda management with ecspresso and Terraform
ijin
2
130
Vision Language Modelと自動運転AIの最前線_20250730
yuyamaguchi
3
1.1k
dipにおけるSRE変革の軌跡
dip_tech
PRO
1
230
AIエージェントを現場で使う / 2025.08.07 著者陣に聞く!現場で活用するためのAIエージェント実践入門(Findyランチセッション)
smiyawaki0820
6
580
Bet "Bet AI" - Accelerating Our AI Journey #BetAIDay
layerx
PRO
4
1.5k
20250728 MCP, A2A and Multi-Agents in the future
yoshidashingo
1
210
VLMサービスを用いた請求書データ化検証 / SaaSxML_Session_1
sansan_randd
0
220
20250807_Kiroと私の反省会
riz3f7
0
130
製造業の課題解決に向けた機械学習の活用と、製造業特化LLM開発への挑戦
knt44kw
0
150
Featured
See All Featured
Imperfection Machines: The Place of Print at Facebook
scottboms
267
13k
A designer walks into a library…
pauljervisheath
207
24k
Git: the NoSQL Database
bkeepers
PRO
431
65k
Balancing Empowerment & Direction
lara
1
530
Raft: Consensus for Rubyists
vanstee
140
7k
Keith and Marios Guide to Fast Websites
keithpitt
411
22k
A Tale of Four Properties
chriscoyier
160
23k
Done Done
chrislema
185
16k
Faster Mobile Websites
deanohume
308
31k
Building Flexible Design Systems
yeseniaperezcruz
328
39k
Practical Orchestrator
shlominoach
190
11k
Into the Great Unknown - MozCon
thekraken
40
2k
Transcript
C O N F I D E N T I
A L ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. iOS MALWARE : MYTH OR REALITY? Julien Bachmann @milkmix_
INTRODUCTION
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 3 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 SOME HISTORY ON BANKING MALWARE Zeus SpyEye Carberp HesperBot Android.iBanking Android.BankBot Android.bankosy
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 4 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. ONLY AN ANDROID PROBLEM RIGHT? Two facts to consider iOS malware is a real thing, even if less widespread now If you are using iOS in your enterprise you might be at risk src: Verizon DBIR 2015
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 5 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. 2009 2012 2014 2015 2016 SOME HISTORY ON iOS MALWARE iKee (ssh) Find and Call AdThief Unflod WireLurker XcodeGhost YiSpecter Muda ZergHelper AceDeceiver
QUICK RECAP ON iOS SECURITY
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 7 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. APPLICATIONS INSTALLATION Limited number of installation paths Closed platform well restricted by Apple Only authorized methods controlled by Apple on non- jailbroken device
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 8 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. APPLICATIONS INSTALLATION AppStore AdHoc / self signed In House 3rd party stores (jailbreak)
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 9 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. APPLICATIONS INSTALLATION AppStore Require Developer certificate Applications are reviewed In House Common method for enterprise applications Require Enterprise Developer account Require Provisioning profile installed on device Ad Hoc Used during development Limited to 100 devices with provisioned UDID Self signed New with iOS 9 and Xcode 7, sign for personal devices
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 10 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. APPLICATIONS INSTALLATION The jailbroken case Several advantages while jailbreaking a device Allows to validate security of applications But disable code signing validations Allows installing applications from untrusted sources
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 11 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. APPLICATIONS RESTRICTIONS Limitations put in place by Apple Applications running in a sandbox Seat-Belt Limited access to filesystem and resources Applications are isolated from one another Requested accesses validated on the AppStore Some limitations may apply…
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 12 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. HOW DEVICES ARE INFECTED? Mostly phishing Lure users into installing malicious application Download link in emails / messages Used it before in phishing campaign for customer : ~10% No exploits and watering hole? Exploitation of software vulnerabilities through the browser Possible but remote code execs are expensive on iOS
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 13 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. HOW DEVICES ARE INFECTED?
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 14 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. HOW DEVICES ARE INFECTED? Traffic injection From the public news, most cases currently in Asia DNS redirects in China Attacks on mobile devices through fake eNodeB Physical attacks Through MobileDevice framework on USB/WiFi AirDrop software flaws Code injection Ex. JSPatch
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 15 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. HOW DEVICES ARE INFECTED? Physical attacks Through MobileDevice framework on USB/WiFi
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 16 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. CODE SIGNING? Phishing is not enough Code signing still performed by iOS Except on jailbroken devices Ad Hoc Too complicated, requires UDID Leaks in the past years, limited now with Apple restrictions Potentially on very targeted attacks Enterprise Developer Certificate User validation Certificate can be easily revoked by Apple upon detection
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 17 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. CODE SIGNING? Enterprise Developer Certificate
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 18 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. CODE SIGNING? Recently in the news “Malware bypassing Apple code signing mechanism” AceDeceiver Truth (explanation w/o the hype) Still requires to be published and accepted by Apple at least once in one of the stores (US, CH, CN, …) Can use geolocation of incoming IP addresses to enable/disable features in the code Possible to exploit design flaw in the validation process when installing from iTunes on Mac/PC Allows to install the malware from Mac/PC even if certificate revoked
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 19 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. CODE SIGNING? http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2016/03/acedeceiver-first-ios-trojan-exploiting-apple-drm-design-flaws-to-infect-any-ios-device/
MALICIOUS ACTIONS
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 21 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. APPSTORE PERMISSIONS Audio recording Easily performed through the API When in background applications are preempted by iOS Except if defined as background application Ribbon displayed to the user Keylogging Since iOS8 : extensions (keyboard, browser filtering, …) Isolated from standard application so no access to Internet or files… … except if requested
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 22 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. KEYLOGGING FROM THE APPSTORE User’s validation
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 23 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. PRIVATE API In the news
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 24 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. SANDBOX IS LIMITING ACTIONS RIGHT? Entitlements 1. Developers should specify entitlements at compilation • http://newosxbook.com/ent.jl 2. Validated by the AppStore 3. Some additional rights for selected partners 4. Enforced on device by seat-belt Private API Forbidden by Apple in the guidelines Still requires entitlements to access data due to sandbox Does not break applications isolation principle Would require to elevate privileges to do so Or flaws in the private APIs validation mechanism (Stefan Esser app) Difficult to detect with automated analysis (static and dynamic)
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 25 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. SANDBOX IS LIMITING ACTIONS RIGHT? Entitlements
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 26 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. SANDBOX IS LIMITING ACTIONS RIGHT? Listing private APIs functions Nicolas Seriot online list Using classdump-dyld on a jailbroken device Calling private APIs Can be called directly Through dynamic loading dlopen / dlsym Using Objective-C reflection property
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 27 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. SANDBOX IS LIMITING ACTIONS RIGHT? Listing private APIs functions
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 28 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. SANDBOX IS LIMITING ACTIONS RIGHT? When linked Objective-C reflection
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 29 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. THE IN HOUSE CASE Entitlements Defined at compilation Not validated by Apple outside of the AppStore flow As seen allows to use more sensitive Private API functions Offers more possibilities CoreTelephony framework Notifications on calls or messages IMSI / IMEI retrieval Install applications Access private information …
NON-APPLICATION BASED ATTACKS
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 31 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. CONFIGURATION PROFILES Probably used in your organization Configure email client Device certificate Corporate WiFi credentials … Also used by attackers Define proxy and install CA for SSL interception Required to run Enterprise Developer signed applications
PROTECTION AND DETECTION
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 33 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION Mobile devices are more complex to protect Network side Not always using your egress point Web filtering / network monitoring not applicable Endpoint side Operating system less open to 3rd party drivers Applications isolation Not an AV friendly environment
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 34 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION ON THE NETWORK IDS like features Use rulesets specific to mobile malware Examples Emerging Threats MOBILE_MALWARE rules Lookout Mobile Threat Intelligence feed Android only AFAIK Detect access to non-corporate configuration Detect download of IPA files signed with external Enterprise Developer accounts
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 35 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION ON THE DEVICES Leverage existing MDM/MAM solution Retrieve installed provisioning profiles All external ones should be suspicious Retrieve installed applications bundle names Match known malicious
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 36 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION ON THE DEVICES Command line tools ideviceinstaller ideviceprovision
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 37 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION ON THE DEVICES Forensics from logs installd SpringBoard
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 38 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION ON THE DEVICES Forensics from side channels logs Battery usage Data usage Both contain applications name and last executed timestamp Available from backups
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 39 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION ON THE DEVICES One remark on forensics acquisition Enterprise app binaries were never part of the backups Since iOS 9 it is the same for AppStore ones Still, those are encrypted so not really useful
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 40 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. DETECTION ON THE DEVICES Future? USB scanning terminal to match known malicious bundles Workstation AV scanning connected devices
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 41 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. PROTECTION Update devices Decrease potential vulnerabilities exploitation Prevent known jailbreaking methods Device hardening iOS security best-practices Disable AirDrop Force 6-digits passcode …
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 42 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. PROTECTION Users training Do not install 3rd party provisioning profiles Do not install applications outside of the AppStore or provided by corporate MDM
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 43 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. FOR THOSE READING FRENCH
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 44 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Claud Xiao from Palo Alto for sharing his samples with the research community
C O N F I D E N T I
A L 45 ©2016 KUDELSKI GROUP / All rights reserved.