Communication security

Secret code from the iPhone was posted to Github in the ‘biggest leak in history’

Remember a few months ago when an Apple engineer casually posted an internal HomePod build that contain plenty of iPhone X secrets? That was Apple’s most significant leak in history… until this week when someone shared the source code for a key piece of the iPhone’s core software, called iBoot. That’s the code that runs on the iPhone before iOS gets started, and whose secrets Apple has never shared.

It’s unclear how it ended up on Github, but the iBoot source code leak is now being called the “biggest leak in history,” according to security researcher Jonathan Levin’s comments to Motherboard.

Levin, who wrote a series of books on iOS and macOS, says it’s a “huge deal” that the iBoot code got out. “iBoot is the one component Apple has been holding on to, still encrypting its 64-bit image,” Levin said. “And now it’s wide open in source code form.”

The code appears to be real according to his own reverse engineering. Even though the leaked iBoot code is from iOS 9, it may still be relevant to security researchers and hackers looking for holes in Apple’s mobile operating system. Apple has not confirmed the authenticity of the leak.