Lodi News-Sentinel

Apple: Software flaws in latest WikiLeaks docs are all fixed

- By Anick Jesdanun

NEW YORK — Apple said purported hacking vulnerabil­ities disclosed by WikiLeaks this week have all been fixed in recent iPhones and Mac computers.

The documents released by the anti-secrecy site Thursday morning pointed to an apparent CIA program to hack Apple devices using techniques that users couldn’t disable by resetting their devices.

The iPhone hack was limited to the 3G model from 2008. In a statement late Thursday, Apple said the flaw was fixed with the release of the iPhone 3GS a year later. Apple also said the Mac vulnerabil­ities were all fixed in all Macs launched after 2013.

Apple’s statement was consistent with assessment­s from security experts, who say that many of the apparent vulnerabil­ities were in older technology. Apple is going further in saying those flaws have all been fixed, based on its preliminar­y analysis.

Security experts say the exploits described in the WikiLeaks documents are plausible, but suggest they pose little threat to typical users. Besides being likely out of date, the techniques also typically require physical access to devices, something the CIA would use only for targeted individual­s, not a broader population.

The CIA has not commented on the authentici­ty of this and earlier WikiLeaks revelation­s, but has previously said it complies with a legal prohibitio­n against electronic surveillan­ce “targeting individual­s here at home, including our fellow Americans.”

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