Apple’s Lockdown Mode Aims to Counter Spyware Threats

The threat to activists, dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders around the world has grown in the past few years due to the increasing popularity of the spy industry. The most sophisticated of these tools can be used to target victims' phones and compromise their operating systems. Activists and security experts are now calling for more drastic measures to protect vulnerable people. Apple has a choice.

Lockdown Mode is a new feature in the upcoming release of the mobile operating system. It doesn't expect the feature to be widely adopted because it was created for a small group of users who are at high risk of being targeted. For those who want to use it, the feature is an alternate mode of Apple's mobile operating system that restricts the tools and services that can be used to take control of victims' devices.

The director of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said on a call with reporters that this is an unprecedented step for user security. Hopefully, this feature will prevent some of the harms from occurring down the road.

There is a mode called Lockdown Mode. To turn it on, users need to enable the feature in the settings menu and then restart their device to take effect. Limitations on the leakiest parts of the operating system are imposed by the feature. Lockdown Mode tries to address threats from web browsing by blocking many speed and efficiency features. By default, Lockdown Mode imposes a host of restrictions that extend anywhere WebKit is working, even if users mark a certain page as trusted. Lockdown Mode protections will apply when you load web content in a third-party app or anios app

Lockdown Mode limits all incoming invitations if the device has already initiated a request. If you have never called your friend, they won't be able to call you on the app. Lockdown Mode only remembers the connection for 30 days when you initiate an interaction. If you don't talk to a friend for a while, you'll need to reestablish contact to get in touch with them again. Lockdown Mode won't show link previews and will block all Attachments with the exception of a few trusted image formats in Messages.

Other protections are strengthened by Lockdown Mode. When a device is locked, it won't be able to connect to the outside world. When Lockdown Mode is turned on, a device that isn't already registered with an MDM program can't be added. If your company gives you a phone that's Enrolled in the corporate MDM, it will stay active if you enable Lockdown Mode. Lockdown Mode can't be turned off by the manager of your MDM. If you put your phone in Lockdown mode, you will not be able to use MDM. This is important because attackers will use MDM to gain access to victims' devices.