A day before Microsoft's was set to publish its July 2018 Patch Tuesday, Apple has also released security patches. This month, the Cupertino-based OS maker has published fixes for products such as macOS, iOS, watchOs, tvOS, Safari, iCloud for Windows, and iTunes for Windows.
Since last month's security patch and before yesterday's new releases, the company also released security updates for Boot Camp, SwiftNIO, and XCode.
USB Restricted Mode ships to iOS 11.4.1Most of the updates are bugfixes for security-related flaws. But new features have also been rolled out. By far the most headline-catching one is the addition of a "USB Restricted Mode" in iOS 11.4.1.
The new USB Restricted Mode is a feature that disables the USB port on iOS devices after an hour. To reactivate it, a user must enter the phone's security code.
Apple rolled out the feature as part of a security measure to prevent certain software firms from selling "iPhone unlocking" technology. One such firm is Cellebrite, a company who sold such a tool to the FBI. Another one is GrayShift, a company which a few months back started mass-producing a technology named GrayKey at a low price, one that made it
financially viable for police departments around the world to be able to buy it.
Last month, Apple rolled the USB Restricted Mode feature into iOS beta, but this didn't worry GrayShift nor law enforcement in the US, as they
hinted at having a way around Apple's new security feature.
USB Restricted Mode already bypassedYesterday, hours after Apple released iOS 11.4.1, software firm Elcomsoft published a blog post about a USB Restricted Mode bypass.
The company says that by plugging in any USB device into an iOS device, it can prevent the USB Restricted Mode feature from enabling the one-hour limit, and keep the user's phone/tablet USB port open and vulnerable to attacks from Cellebrite and GrayShift equipment.
USB Restricted Mode ships out disabled by default, and users will need to consult their iOS device's settings area to enable it —under the Touch ID & Passcode section, and under the USB Accessories label.
Below are the rest of the Apple security updates released yesterday, and during the past month.
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