Apple’s Lockdown mode

© iStock.

Apple is applying a new setting, called Lockdown, to iOS 16, iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura, to reinforce security for people such as journalists, activists and politicians. It is meant to reinforce the protection of devices and to resist the intrusion of sophisticated spyware such as the infamous Pegasus, used for example by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and found on the phone of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated by a Saudi special forces commando. Once activated, Lockdown blocks several kinds of attachments, link previews, FaceTime calls and invitations from unidentified contacts, and some Web technologies such as JavaScript’s Just-in-time code compilation, for example. Needless to say, this mode degrades the resulting user experience and is not for everyone. Even Apple qualifies this optional mode as “extreme.” “While the vast majority of users will never be the victims of highly targeted cyberattacks, we will work tirelessly to protect the small number of users who are,” says Ivan Krstić, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture.

⇨ Ars Technica, Dan Goodin, “Why Lockdown mode from Apple is one of the coolest security ideas ever.”

2022-07-06