The vulnerabilities identified by Google on iOS would have allowed China to spy on members of the Uyghur ethnic group. In addition to iPhone, flaws in mobile Android and Windows have also been exploited to track down this community.
Recently, Futura evoked the discovery of flaws that affected several versions of iOS and therefore many iPhones. Since at least 2016, the hacking took place during the visit of malicious sites and via vulnerabilities of the Safari browser. If Apple deployed patches, the damage was done for many users.
However, according to the site TechCrunch, the Chinese state would have taken advantage of these flaws to spy on the community of Uighurs. This ethnic group based in Xinjiang Province is abused by the authorities because of its religious practice and its desire to maintain its cultural identity. The flaw allowed Beijing to collect the same encrypted messages via WhatsApp, Telegram or iMessage from the iPhone. In addition to this, the authorities were able to recover passwords and geolocate users.
iOS touched, but also Android and Windows
The malicious sites being consulted by the members of this community installed everywhere in the world, they too were hunted down. Still according to TechCrunch, to solve the problem radically, the FBI would have asked Google to de-index the sites in question. But here … even if an update of iOS 12 distributed in February has plugged the flaw, Chinese authorities have also used other vulnerabilities in Android or Windows to continue their hunt for this community.
According to Forbes, Microsoft is committed to investigate and take the necessary steps to ensure the protection of its customers. For its part, for the moment, Apple has not commented on this case and as for Google, which has detected these vulnerabilities of iOS, it has not communicated on the flaws that affect its mobile OS. The Chinese government remains totally silent on the subject.