Apple’s AirDrop Vulnerability Can Leak User Details to Anyone in Proximity: Researchers
Apple is said to have known of the vulnerability since May 2019.
By Jagmeet Singh | Updated: 26 April 2021 19:31 IST
Apple’s AirDrop is available preloaded on the iPhone, iPad, and the Mac since 2011
Highlights
The service uses hash functions for the details
Researchers found that the user details exchanged can easily be decrypted
Apple's AirDrop technology could leak users' phone numbers and email addresses, according to researchers who said that they had first informed Apple of the vulnerability in 2019. AirDrop is Apple's proprietary wireless technology that is used for sharing files such as photos and videos wireless across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS devices and was introduced in 2011. It uses both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to establish a wireless connection and exchange files. The mutual authentication mechanism used by AirDrop can, however, be misused to steal the phone number and email address of a user.