Paul Morris on November 9, 2016, 1:45 am

iOS 10.2 Makes Encrypted iTunes Backups Safe Again

A new report has taken the time to delve into iOS 10.2 – which is currently in a development beta – to shed some light on the security improvements made by Apple in this latest version of its iOS operating system.

It was only a matter of weeks ago when we brought you the news that encrypted iTunes backup were significantly less secure in iOS 10 than those taken on iOS 9, but it now seems like Apple has taken steps to address those issues with iOS 10.2.

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For iPhone and iPad users who regularly take the opportunity to perform encrypted iTunes-based backup, security is a rather big issue and concern. Given the fact that those backups contain information that is potentially sensitive, and potentially very important to the device owner, it’s of paramount importance that it’s secure.

With early versions of iOS 10 that wasn’t the case, but with iOS 10.2 security experts have found that it takes roughly 1,000 years now to hack encryption on those backups. The realization that security wasn’t up to scratch with backups in initial versions of iOS 10 was enough to kickstart Apple into action for making things better with iOS 10.1.

Those changes meant that brute force attacks on a backup password weren’t as easy. Now, with iOS 10.2 beta 2, it’s immediately evident that security has once again been ramped up to the next level to ensure that encryption is even more harder to bypass. As pointed out by a number of reports on the topic, Apple’s decision to increase security in this manner is largely down to public outcry and privacy fears, but also to the fact that the software which makes brute-force attacks easy to invoke is being freely distributed and sold on the web.

These latest changes in iOS 10.2 means that it would theoretically take a hacker approximately 1,000 years to crack a password on a backup. Of course, what is likely to happen is that those who have ambitions to crack or bypass encryption on Apple backups will attempt to up their game so to speak in order to get ahead of Apple once again.

However, as things stand, Apple looks to have taken the initiative over would-be hackers by putting the security and privacy of consumers at the top of its agenda to make things immensely tougher to crack with iOS 10.2.

(Via: CultofMac)