Ministry issues a warning to Disable iMessage feature

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ has issued a cautionary advisory to all ministry employees and “iPhone” users regarding a critical security vulnerability present in the “iMessage” feature. In light of this potential risk, users are urged to disable the “iMessage” functionality on their devices to mitigate the possibility of unauthorized access and device compromise by malicious attackers.

iMessage is such a complex platform that offers an array of communication options and features. It encompasses Animojis, rendering files like photos and videos, and integration with other apps—everything from Apple Pay and iTunes to Fandango and Airbnb. All of these extensions and interconnections increase the likelihood of mistakes and weaknesses.

One of the most interesting interaction-less bugs experts found was a fundamental logic issue that could allow a hacker to easily extract data from a user’s messages. An attacker could send a specially crafted text message to a target, and the iMessage server would send specific user data back, like the content of their SMS messages or images. The victim wouldn't even have to open their iMessage app for the attack to work. iOS has protections in place that would usually block an attack like this, but because it takes advantage of the system's underlying logic, iOS’ defenses interpret it as legitimate and intended.