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Companies Paying Big for Exploits

In today’s day in age we use our phones for a variety of reasons. Our phones have become an essential tool to most of and that means we end up having lots of critical/sensitive information within our phones. Be it either on the actual phone itself or the information the phone can transfer across the network, our phones do contain valuable data. If you own an Apple iPhone you might have heard of a term “Jailbreak” or “Jailbreaking” your phone. iOS jailbreaking is privilege escalation for the purpose of removing software restrictions imposed by Apple on iOS. This allows user data to be manipulated and allows users to access/edit system information on the device itself. While most people perform jailbreaking on their device to access certain “extra features” others can use it for bad intentions; Like intercepting messages, monitoring GPS locations, etc. As of late many companies and government agencies are announcing their willingness to pay for (single-click and no-click) exploits. Single-click being the act of the user having to intervene/interact with the device at least once before the exploit is launched. On January 7th, 2019 market leading exploit broker Zerodium said it would pay up to $2 million for jailbreaks for Apple’s IOS. The reason these exploits are so high in demand is because the software on phones is getting increasingly difficult to compromise, which is a good thing. But, when you think about IT security, ethical hacking comes to mind. These companies are trying to exploit these mobile devices to find new vulnerabilities in their software, further improving on the security of their devices. If you are smart enough, this is a good way to get the bills payed.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/zeroday-exploit-prices-continue-to-soar-especially-for-ios-and-messaging-apps/

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