Hackers Use Flipper Zero Device to Attack Nearby iPhones with Notification Pop-ups

Flipper Zero Devices have been discovered with the capability to perform Denial of Service attacks on iPhones.

Threat actors can probably spam the iPhones with so many pop-ups prompting about nearby AirTag, Apple TV, AirPods, and other Apple devices.

Moreover, Flipper Zero Devices can also perform wireless attacks that target car keyfobs, RFID cards, iPhones, and many more.

Security Researcher Anthony, who discovered this attack, termed this as “a Bluetooth advertising assault”.

Flipper Zero Attack Nearby iPhones

Flipper Zero firmware can be used for conducting a broadcast called “Bluetooth Advertising,” which is a type of transmission in the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol used by Apple for enabling iDevice users to connect to Apple Watch and other Apple devices and send pictures using the Bluetooth file sharing system AirDrop.

TechCrunch was able to replicate the vulnerabilities in both the iPhone 8 and the recently released iPhone 14 Pro models, which could potentially be exploited by attackers.

This was done by changing the Flipper Zero firmware with a custom compiled code. After this, a simple switching “ON” of Bluetooth from Flipper Zero begins the broadcasting of pop-up signals to nearby iPhones.

“The exploits worked on iPhones both when Bluetooth was enabled or switched off in the Control Center, but could not reproduce the exploit when Bluetooth was fully switched off from the Settings,”.

Furthermore, the researcher (Anthony) also said that he was able to create an attack that can broadcast signals over longer distances, even miles, and create pop-ups with millions of devices spamming at a high range.

However, he is not providing more details about the attack as it could lead to a vast attack surface for threat actors who intend to spam victims.

A complete exploit and research was published by Anthony, providing more information about the Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

He also added that Apple could mitigate this issue by verifying the integrity of the Bluetooth Devices connecting to the iPhones. They can also reduce the distance at which iDevices can connect to other devices using Bluetooth.

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