Apple announced on December 7 a series of technical developments aimed at strengthening the protection of its users’ data, to deal with hacking attempts adapted by States. In particular, the company announced the implementation of encryption “end to end” automatic backups from iCloud, Apple’s online data storage service. Until now, assigned data in iCloud was encrypted, making it difficult to hack, but it wasn’t equally protected when transferring between a phone and iCloud.
This lack of protection during transfer left the data vulnerable to being sucked in by hackers controlling the local network – an Internet service provider or the administrator of a Wi-Fi network, for example. These data exchanges will now be end-to-end encrypted, as are messages on WhatsApp, Signal or iMessage: an encryption key known only to the user will be used for protection.
Data inaccessible to hackers and the police
Similar technology will also be used in an optional feature, dubbed “Advanced Data Protection”, which will encrypt “end to end” iCloud data. Again, only the user will have the decryption key; even Apple will no longer be able to read the data, including in the event of hacking or judicial requisition. Users who activated this option are invited to keep this key carefully, otherwise they will never be able to access their data again.
The announcement of these new features was criticized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The US federal police said “worried worried about the threats posed by end-to-end encryption”who “limit our ability to protect the American people from criminals”says the FBI, quoted by the the wall street journal. These new services, on the other hand, were mainly contained by privacy organizations and the computer security researchers.
These new tools will be rolled out from early 2023, Apple said.