Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons
license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary
on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the
entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/


             Memory Integrity Enforcement Bolsters iPhone Security

   Adam Engst

   In an Apple Security Research blog post, the company's [1]Security
   Engineering and Architecture team writes:

     Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) is the culmination of an
     unprecedented design and engineering effort, spanning half a decade,
     that combines the unique strengths of Apple silicon hardware with
     our advanced operating system security to provide industry-first,
     always-on memory safety protection across our devices ' without
     compromising our best-in-class device performance. We believe Memory
     Integrity Enforcement represents the most significant upgrade to
     memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.

     There has never been a successful, widespread malware attack against
     iPhone. The only system-level iOS attacks we observe in the wild
     come from mercenary spyware, which is vastly more complex than
     regular cybercriminal activity and consumer malware. Mercenary
     spyware is historically associated with state actors and uses
     exploit chains that cost millions of dollars to target a very small
     number of specific individuals and their devices. Although the vast
     majority of users will never be targeted in this way, these exploit
     chains demonstrate some of the most expensive, complex, and advanced
     attacker capabilities at any given time and are uniquely deserving
     of study as we work to protect iPhone users against even the most
     sophisticated threats. Known mercenary spyware chains used against
     iOS share a common denominator with those targeting Windows and
     Android: they exploit memory safety vulnerabilities, which are
     interchangeable, powerful, and exist throughout the industry. '¦

     Based on our evaluations pitting Memory Integrity Enforcement
     against exceptionally sophisticated mercenary spyware attacks from
     the last three years, we believe MIE will make exploit chains
     significantly more expensive and difficult to develop and maintain,
     disrupt many of the most effective exploitation techniques from the
     last 25 years, and completely redefine the landscape of memory
     safety for Apple products.

   The short version of this security article is that Apple has built a
   sophisticated new security system into the latest iPhones to help
   prevent a particularly dangerous type of hack where attackers
   manipulate the phone's memory to gain control. This kind of attack is
   primarily used by companies that create spyware for governments to
   target specific individuals like journalists, activists, and
   dissidents. The new system, which took years of development and deep
   integration between Apple's hardware and software, is currently
   available only in the A19 and A19 Pro chips used in the iPhone 17 and
   iPhone Air. I would expect to see it appear in the M-series chips that
   power Macs and high-end iPads as well, perhaps with the M5, though
   Apple hasn't said anything about such a migration.

   [2]Read original article

References

   1. https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-enforcement/
   2. https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-enforcement/

.