I thought this was interesting and relevant to our recent discussions about social engineering. Apple Air Tags are used to locate frequently lost devices. Finders of a tag can scan the device on their iPhone to reveal information about the tag\u2019s owner if it\u2019s in \u201clost mode.\u201d\u00a0 During the scan, the finder\u2019s iPhone displays a custom web page with the owner\u2019s phone number.<\/p>\n
The Air Tag \u201cGood Samaritan Attack\u201d exploits a flaw in this process which does not sanitize the input to the phone number field.\u00a0 This allows the bad actor to input anything they\u2019d like into the field, e.g. a redirect to an iCloud phishing page.\u00a0 The deployment is similar to USB baiting attacks where USB devices are dropped outside the target location.\u00a0 The Good Samaritan picks up the device, scans the tag, and is redirected to the attack page. This is concerning as users are not as diligent with checking sites on mobile devices and it may not be clear that they are being redirected to a malicious site.<\/p>\n
The researcher who found the bug, Bobby Rauch, reported that Apple was not responsive to his attempts to disclose the issue.\u00a0 This has been a trend among security researchers that report issues to Apple.\u00a0 Rauch stated that they never answered his questions about the bug bounty program and did not follow-up with their remediation plan.\u00a0 Apple did ask that Rauch avoid publicizing his findings; however, he did not comply with this request, due to their lack of communication.<\/p>\n
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Article: Apple AirTag Bug Enables \u2018Good Samaritan\u2019 Attack<\/p>\n
Author: Brian Krebs<\/p>\n
Published: September 28, 2021<\/p>\n