Lockdown Mode, Apple Style

Lockdown Mode Safety, With A $2 Million Bug Bounty

If you missed it, Apple announced a brand new security feature which will arrive with iOS/iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura.  The feature, called Lockdown Mode, will protect your iThing by disabling a wide variety of services when enabled.  After you enable it you won’t be able to download attachments, or accept FaceTime calls from unknown parties.  The fruity silicon will also refuse to accept wired connections to computers or peripherals.

In addition you would be unable to installation any configuration profiles nor mobile device management enrollment requests and just-in-time JavaScript compiling is right out.  All of these mitigations may make the phone somewhat less useful but certainly more secure, and Apple may expand the features blocked by Lockdown Mode as new threats evolve.

This is specifically intended to block Pegasus malware and it’s descendants, but should help mitigate against other attacks, at least for now.  If you can break into a phone with Lockdown Mode Apple is offering up to a $2 million bug bounty, an impressive amount compared to most other offerings for security researchers.