Apple Assures Customers their Phones Are Safe Despite Code Leak

Apple has issued an official statement about the controversial leak of the iPhone’s source code which has prompted numerous security concerns. The company said users’ phones are safe as the security of the handsets does not rely on the secrecy of the code.

Plus, Apple said the leaked code is three-years-old, so there is no need to panic. Apple also explained that its products have multiple layers of protection, so customers should be safe as long as they update to the latest version of the operating system (OS).

The source code for iOS 9, aka the iBoot, was posted online by an anonymous user earlier this week on Github.

Motherboard was the first tech magazine to report the issue.

The source code ensures that all the apps running on an iPhone do not pose security risks and they cannot be hacked.

iBoot is extremely important for Apple products’s security. This may be why the company offered a $200,000 bounty for bug hunters that are able to spot glitches in the code.

Security experts are concerned that after the leak hackers could analyze it closely and find flaws that they could later exploit. Apple had prompted Github to take down the page showing the code as soon as it learned about the leak. However, copies of the source code started popping up online soon after the incident.

iBoot was first rolled out in 2015. Currenlty, just 7% of iPhone and iPads use an iOS version that is older than the iOS 10. The latest version was launched in the fall of 2016.

Cybersecurity expert Michael Borohovski noted that the iBoot is so technologically old that any glitches hackers may come across are no longer relevant. However, 7% means 70 million devices are still at risk which is still a sizable amount.