"People are unaware that these small cheap devices can actually infect their firmware," says Kovah. "You could get a worm started all around the world that's spreading very low and slow. If people don't have awareness that attacks can be happening at this level then they're going to have their guard down and an attack will be able to completely subvert their system."

"Some vendors like Dell and Lenovo have been very active in trying to rapidly remove vulnerabilities from their firmware," Kovah notes. "Most other vendors, including Apple as we are showing here, have not. We use our research to help raise awareness of firmware attacks, and show customers that they need to hold their vendors accountable for better firmware security."

By Sam Oliver

Monday, March 02, 2015, 11:01 am PT (02:01 pm ET)

Thursday October 17, 2013 10:54 am PDT by Juli Clover

The company's claim that iMessage is protected by unbreakable encryption is "just basically lies," said Cyril Cattiaux, who has developed iOS jailbreak software and works for Quarkslab, a penetration testing and reverse engineering company in Paris.

The researchers emphasized they have no indication that Apple or the government is reading iMessages, only that it would be possible to do so.

With a public server, such as MIT’s PGP Public Key Server, the sender can at least see more information, such as whether a key has changed. At that point, the sender can decide whether they want to trust it or not if they suspect a man in the middle attack. Apple’s key server is not public, the researchers say.

"The biggest problem here is you just cannot control that the public key you are using when you are ciphering the message is really the key of your recipient and not, for example, the public key of some guy in Apple," Cattiaux said.

We expect the unprecedented 12” model will boast both the portability of the 11” model, and productivity of the 13” model. The high resolution display will also offer the outstanding visual experience of the Retina MacBook Pro. The offering will likely be lighter and slimmer than the existing MacBook Air to further highlight ease of portability in the cloud computing era. We think the form factor will showcase a much improved clamshell structure, and that it will redefine laptop computing once again following the milestone created by the MacBook Air.

Friday October 11, 2013 7:24 am PDT by Richard Padilla

“Anytime there is new hardware or software release, we see issues,” Crittercism CEO Andrew Levy said in an interview. “Inevitably, over time, those issues get resolved.” 

Levy said that perhaps the reason the iPhone 5s is seeing more crashes than the equally new iPhone 5c is that, while developers were able to check their apps for compatibility with iOS 7 during several months of beta testing, the new hardware wasn’t available ahead of time. The iPhone 5s packs a new 64-bit A7 chip and an M7 coprocessor, while the 5c is nearly identical, internally, to the iPhone 5.

When you upgrade to iOS 7.0, be aware of some security settings that you might want to review.

Apple hides its System Services settings all the way at the bottom of the Privacy > Location Services panel (Settings icon).

You will have many applications listed on this screen. At the bottom of the list, you will see the System Services setting and the explanation box of what the purple arrow icon means.

Then, notice when the arrow icon appears in the top right of your iOS menu bar and come back to Settings > Privacy > Location Services to see which apps are using your location data. Disable location access for apps that don't need it. 

1. Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services

We also recommend turning off:

1. Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services Diagnostics & Usage

The Diagnostics & Usage setting monitors everything you do on your iPad/iPhone and "anonymously" sends it to Apple for "improving the iOS."

If that option is on, you're basically giving Apple your permission to monitor and record everything you do on your device.

1. Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Frequent Locations

Frequent Locations is equally as bad as Diagnostics & Usage, so please disable this function.

1. Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Location-Based iAds

iAds details how your location information could be used to allow Apple — and its "partners and licensees" — to "collect, use and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device."

Finally, we suggest turning off:

1. Settings > Safari > Do Not Track

Apple is one of the few companies that still supports the aging "Do Not Track" standard in its mobile Web browser.

In summary, many programmers consider new iOS releases a test by Apple to check the functionality across a user base larger than its iOS development team. Many "upgrades" have required patches within a week of issuance because of battery life issues, bug fixes and security fixes to the newly released upgrade.

iOS 7 is here – should you upgrade?

Your iPad is about to look very different, at least on the software side. iOS, the base operating system that drives Apple’s iPad and iPhone, is getting a major upgrade with the release of iOS version 7.  This free update is available now, adding a number of new features and a completely new look . iOS 7 is the most significant change to the iPad’s operating system ever, and it can be confusing if you don’t know what to expect. In this article, we’ll explain how to do the update and offer some tips for navigating the new software.

Can you do the update?

First, it’s worth asking whether you can even do the update. Here are the list of iOS 7 compatible devices:

• iPhone 4
• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 5
• iPad 2
• iPad 3 (Retina display)
• iPad 4 (Retina display)
• iPad Mini
• iPod Touch 5th generation

If you have an iPad 1 or an iPhone 3GS, your device will still work–you just won’t be able to do any future upgrades. So while you can keep flying with one of these, it’s probably time to consider an upgrade. Also note that just because your device is compatible with iOS 7 doesn’t mean every feature will be available. For example, the AirDrop feature will not work on iPhone 4/4S or iPad 2/3.

So you can do the update, but should you? Some people are nervous about software upgrades, advocating you wait until some of the inevitable bugs have been worked out. It’s a reasonable idea, but we’ve been using iOS 7 for weeks now and can report that it’s very stable. The major aviation apps run just fine, and we have no hesitation about performing the update.

We talked to the app developers as well and, while cautious, they seem to be pretty excited about iOS 7. Here’s what ForeFlight CEO Tyson Weihs had to say:

iOS 7 is about the biggest OS release since 2008. Given the magnitude, there will inevitably be things that both Apple and app makers will have to address. There is no need to rush to iOS 7, as iOS 6 is incredibly stable. If your iPad is a critical part of your flight deck, waiting for Apple to push a couple of minor bugfix updates is prudent. There will inevitably be issues they find and will need to fix once iOS 7 is in the wild. We strongly recommend waiting to fly with iOS 7 until you have a good half day to devote to familiarizing yourself with the significant changes–like the overhauled user interface and aesthetics, app switching, radio management, and kill app functions–and make sure all your apps operate as you expect. We have put a lot of effort into ensuring ForeFlight Mobile runs well on iOS 7. We don’t expect major issues and as always will quickly address anything that needs attention.

Jan Mackenzie from Garmin said Garmin Pilot 5.1.2 (the latest version) is compatible with iOS 7, but there are some known issues. These have been addressed in version 5.2 of the app, which should be available very soon.

This matches the advice we’ve heard from other developers: if you’re dying to get iOS 7, go ahead and upgrade. Just give yourself some time to adapt. If you choose to wait, there’s nothing wrong with that approach.

Backup your iPad – it’s easy to do.

How to get iOS 7

First, before you even think about doing the upgrade, back up your iPad. It’s easy to do and you’ll be glad you did if anything should go wrong. For details about backing up to iCloud (wirelessly) or iTunes (syncing with your computer)

Once you’ve backed up your iPad, installing the update is actually quite easy. Go to the Settings app -> General -> Software Update. Your iPad will prompt you to install iOS 7, and ask you to plug it in. Tap the download and install button and you’re on your way. It can take some time to download the update, so be patient. Once the upgrade is complete, your iPad will restart and you’ll notice the difference right away.

Quick tour of iOS 7

The actual apps you fly with won’t look any different in iOS 7, so your favorite moving map page or weather app will feel familiar. It’s the overall operating system and the Apple apps (Mail, iTunes Store, Calendar, etc.) that has changed. Here’s a look at some of the more important changes:

• New look and feel. The first thing you’ll see is that iOS 7 has a very different style. Apple changed the color scheme, icons and buttons throughout, so take some time to familiarize yourself with the new interface. You’ll notice that the icons for the Apple apps are new, though functionality is mostly the same once in the app. One difference worth pointing out is the new style of buttons used in the apps; they are often represented by blue text or simple icons, compared to the round button shapes used in the previous versions of iOS.
• Control Center. One of our favorite features in iOS 7 is the new Control Center–a major upgrade over the old way of adjusting settings. At any time you can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to display the Control Center, which provides quick access to the settings you use most often: the music player, audio volume, screen brightness and AirPlay. In the center you’ll see 5 round buttons to quickly toggle the following settings on or off: airplane mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, do not disturb mode and screen orientation lock. And at the right side there are two buttons for quick access to the clock and camera apps. The control center is also accessible from the lock screen.

• Multi-tasking. The next thing to check out is the new appearance of the multitasking display (which shows a list of recently used apps and makes it easy to switch back and forth between them). Double-tap the home button to access this, and you’ll now see that the iPad shows a preview of the app in a window above the icon. Swipe your finger to scroll through the apps, and tap either the preview window or the icon to switch to a new app. Apple did make a change here in how you shut down an app completely. Instead of holding down on the icon to close it, you simply tap and hold on the preview window, and swipe it towards the top of the screen. This is useful if an app is not responding properly, or if you need to restart it.

• Searching for apps/Notifications. For those who like to use the spotlight search feature, it has moved and is now accessed by swiping down on the middle of the home screen. This is helpful for quickly launching apps that might be buried in a folder on a second or third screen. Notifications are also different: to access the notifications display, swipe down from the top of the screen. The style of this display has been updated to be a lot more organized and readable, and you can either view All or Missed notifications using the buttons at the top.

• Automatic app updates. Another new feature added in iOS 7 is automatic app updates. With this feature enabled, the iPad will automatically download new app updates as they become available from the App Store. This can be really handy, as your apps stay up to date with no input from you. But there’s a catch for pilots–an auto-update could create a situation where an app or data could be unavailable in the airplane. To be safe, we recommend that pilots disable this feature. To disable this, go to Settings, scroll down to iTunes and App Store on the left, and turn the switch OFF for Automatic Downloads – Updates.

While iOS 7 is undoubtedly a big change, we found ourselves feeling pretty comfortable with it after a day or two. Most of the changes are positives, and make everyday tasks easier to do. But plan on an evening on the couch to get familiar with it before you go flying.