It seems that sending messages over iMessage is not as safe as it has been supposed. According to an article that was published on MacRumors.com, a team of researchers from John Hopkins University identified several issues in connection with the messaging service from Apple.
These issues are different from those that were identified last March. The ones uncovered in March allowed attackers to access photos and videos sent though iMessage and even decrypt those. The researchers now uncovered what is known as the ciphertext attack. This attack gave the attacker the ability to decrypt attachments for as long as the sender or even the receiver is online.
The team says that the attack requires a great deal of sophistication which makes state sponsored attackers a possibility. They also stated that while Apple has made improvements in the security of their messaging system, it is not enough. This means that messages sent over iMessage might not be safe against determined attackers.
Another problem that was uncovered by the team was the fact that Apple did not rotate the encryption keys for the messaging service regularly. That means historical data stored on iCloud is also vulnerable to the same attack.
The team suggests that the same attack can be used on other features that use the same kind of encryption format. The issues uncovered by the team were all very serious and it left a lot of people concerned.
According to Patently Apple, the problems that have been identified by the team of cryptographers from John Hopkins University have been resolved. Apple has issued long-term as well as short-term defenses that are aimed at resolving the issues.
But the recommendation of the research team is that the encryption format should be changed. The change they say would eliminate the weakness in the messaging service.
