Black Hat Security Conference is underway at Ceasar’s Palace in Las Vegas and Apple is planning to present for the first time in the event’s fifteen-year history. Warming up to hackers, the iPhone maker dispatched Dallas De Atley, its Manager of the Platform Security team, to talk iOS security.
According to the conference agenda, De Atley will “discuss key security technologies in iOS” as “Apple designed the iOS platform with security at its core”. Apple’s decision to take part in the conference coincides with a few security breaches in its mobile and desktop operating systems that routinely make headlines in the press.
Some of the recent examples include the widely reported IAP exploit and Mac malware that prompted Apple to step up its game with the new Gatekeeper feature in OS X Mountain Lion, designed to only allow for approved, signed apps from the Mac App Store…
Jordan Robertson, reporting for Bloomberg:
In the 15 years that computer hackers have gathered in Las Vegas for the Black Hat conference, an event where unknowns can become stars and tech heavyweights are skewered for security failures, one company has been noticeably absent: Apple.
While many major technology vendors have overcome their reluctance to making a public showing at the conference, Apple, now the world’s most valuable company, has had no problem snubbing a community whose aim is to unearth its vulnerabilities.
That will change Thursday when Dallas De Atley, manager of Apple’s platform security team, is scheduled to give a presentation on key security technologies within iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads.
This line caught my attention:
In recent years, Apple products have been stripped of their image of being hack-proof.
Er, sorry to burst your bubble, Jordan Robertson, but Apple products have never enjoyed the image of being hack-proof and have had exploits and vulnerabilities in them since the dawn of time.
It’s just that Windows boxes dominate the computing market so vulnerabilities in Apple’s products were not really prioritized in the press.
Thoughts?