Big iOS 7 security flaw could prevent people from recovering stolen iPhones


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Apple?s new iOS 7 software wasn?t even available for a day before a potentially serious security flaw was discovered. iOS 7 features several enhancements to Siri as well as a new Control Center, each offering a number of new conveniences. By default, both are also available while the user?s iPhone or iPad is locked. As reported by MacRumors, these conveniences come at a price: Using either the Control Center or Siri, someone who steals an iOS device or finds a lost device can quickly and easily disable Find My iPhone or Find My iPad, thus preventing a user from recovering his or her device.
 
With a simple Siri command or by swiping up on the lock screen, anyone can enable airplane mode on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, thereby severing the device?s connectivity and disabling Apple?s device recovery service. By default, this can be done whether or not the device is protected by a PIN or passcode.
 
The same can be done by switching a device off, of course, but there?s an obvious and crucial difference: Enabling airplane mode allows a thief to work on breaking past the PIN code or passcode security without having to worry about the device?s owner discovering its location.
 
Apple has not yet commented publicly on the security flaw.

 

 

 
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Well one of those is not a flaw, there's an option to disable access to control centre from the lock screen in settings, It's your choice to have it on.

Though having Siri able to turn it off is a bigger problem.

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That's just terrible. What were they thinking?

I imagine it was done for convenience without any thought for the security implications, though it is surprising that it wasn't picked up before release given that there was a beta.

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What I love is that they wait until now to post a flame bait article.  This has been in the os since beta 1 and hasn't been mentioned once.  And yet this is front page news today.....have to love tech blogs.

 

What BGR doesn't mention from macrumors is the update they posted: 

 

 

Update: Commenters have noted that users can also turn Airplane Mode on from the Control Center by swiping up from the lock screen. Lock screen Control Center access can be disabled from the Settings/Control Center panel. Find My iPhone can also be effectively disabled by turning the phone off.

 

Siri imo has always been somewhat useless.  Turn off siri and control center from the lock screen and issue is solved.

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What I love is that they wait until now to post a flame bait article.  This has been in the os since beta 1 and hasn't been mentioned once.  And yet this is front page news today.....have to love tech blogs.

 

What BGR doesn't mention from macrumors is the update they posted: 

 

Siri imo has always been somewhat useless.  Turn off siri and control center from the lock screen and issue is solved.

How is this flame bait?  Perhaps they had hoped it would be fixed before general release? 

Turn off Siri?  One of the features of IOS7 is an updated Siri.. so just turn it off? cmon.. thats your fix?

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How is this flame bait?  Perhaps they had hoped it would be fixed before general release? 

Turn off Siri?  One of the features of IOS7 is an updated Siri.. so just turn it off? cmon.. thats your fix?

 

I said turn off siri from the lock screen.  The feature is useless anyways as you have to unlock the phone to complete many of the functions you ask siri to do anyways.

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