Apple AirDrop Flaw Could Expose Personal Info To Anyone In Wi-Fi Range

What’s going on?

Researchers at the University of Germany have come up with the newest report.

As per their reports, the wi-fi and Bluetooth-powered Apple-To-Apple data transfer can expose the phone number and address of the users to a stranger who is coming in the range of the wi-fi.

It means no matter whether you know them or not, the people who are in the range of wi-fi will be able to have your information without any effort. Isn’t it a stressful report?

The most surprising thing is that the user will not be informed about the same. All the information will get transferred to others without being in the knowledge of the victim.

Moreover, the information can get into the hands of third-party, which can further pose a threat for the user. The reports were brought up by Trusted Reviews.

As per the release, it has been claimed that as an attacker, it is possible to learn the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the users.

What To Do?

All that a user should do is to get a wi-fi-capable device and physical proximity to target what initiates the discovery of the process.

The device helps by opening the sharing pane on ios or a macOS device. Lastly, the users need to secure the mobile networking lab & the cryptography and privacy engineering group.

The problem has been found to be rooted in Apple’s use of hash functions for exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses during the process.

Researchers from various parts of the world have already shown that hashing has failed to provide privacy-preserving contact discovery because the hash values can be quickly reversed by using simple techniques.

This means it is easy for a stranger to use the mechanism and the process to have your information.

How Can You Prevent The Vulnerability?

The researchers have brought the data and have claimed that over 1.5 billion users could be vulnerable to the issue.

The most stressful point is that Apple has not even paid attention because it is not a major problem for them. They were aware of the issue since 2019 but have turned their back on it.

If you want to go as per the advice of the researchers, then they have suggested completely turn off the AirDrop.

As of now, the company has not taken any step, so you need to think about your privacy.

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