Apple has been swimming against the tide in the technology market for a long time and has relied on its own Lightning cables for years, while the competition primarily relied on Micro-USB and later USB-C. Now an expert has found that Apple’s USB-C cables pose a security risk.
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What’s the problem with the cables? Security researcher Thomas Roth presented at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg that it is possible to hack the USB-C controller of the iPhone 15 and 16.
Chaos Communications Congress is a multi-day meeting of the “hacker scene” that takes place annually.
Roth showed that he had successfully managed to extract the iPhones’ firmware via Apple’s USB-C controller. Although this alone does not enable cyber attacks, it does lay the foundation for analyzing the code, finding possible vulnerabilities and exploiting them using malware.
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What does that mean for you? Initially, Roth revealed to Forbes that his findings have no real impact on Android smartphones.
In addition, there are currently no threats to iPhones or other Apple devices that have emerged from Roth’s latest findings. So no additional protective measures would be required at the moment.
If you still want to protect yourself from the threat in the future, you should avoid using unknown charging stations, for example at airports or train stations.
What does Apple say about Roth’s findings? According to Forbes, Roth reported his findings to Apple. The company then told him that they recognized the complexity of his attack and therefore did not view it as a threat.
USB-C cables have long been considered a popular “door opener” by hackers because the now standardized and universally applicable cables can be prepared with hidden hardware and thus steal data or transmit malware. You can find out more about this here: A cable on your PC that you never think about has become a hacker’s favorite target