Apple encryption flaw exposes iMessage pictures and videos - CNET

Enlarge Image

Your encrypted iMessage chats may not be as secure as you think.

A research team from Johns Hopkins University discovered a flaw in Apple's iMessage service that could allow someone to intercept images and videos sent using the messaging platform. It would take a skilled hacker to undo Apple's security, according to a Monday report in the Washington Post, but with perseverance it can be done.

Apple's use of encryption, which scrambles information to shield it from prying eyes, is a contentious subject right now. The tech giant is locked in a high-stakes standoff with the US govement over personal privacy versus national security, following the FBI's insistence that Apple provide it with special software to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Beardino, Califoia, terrorist attack last December. Apple and the feds are due face off in court on Tuesday.

A great many voices from within the tech community have spoken out in support of Apple, from Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to cryptographers like Matthew Green, one of the Johns Hopkins computer scientists who discovered the iMessage bug.

"It scares me that we're having this conversation about adding back doors to encryption when we can't even get basic encryption right," Green told the Washington Post. He added that the vulnerability he discovered would be of no use to the FBI in its quest to access the San Beardino shooter's iPhone data.