Watch This Man Hack 26 iPhones At The Same Time Without Even Touching Them

The COVID-19 pandemic and large-scaled lockdowns as a result of it have given people a lot of extra free time to spend on the hobbies they were too busy to enjoy. While some chose to watch Netflix, others took the chance to create stuff.

During this time, Ian Beer, a professional Google security researcher, found bugs allowing him to hack into iPhones close by just by using some cheap gear and the Rasberry Pi. He shared the exploit in his blog post that includes how he carried out the trick. It took him half a year to make this trick work.

A hack like this is scary to a lot of us because we don’t know how much harm they can cause. As explained by the security researcher, he created a wormable radio-proximity exploit that let him take over any iPhone nearby. He could view all emails, photos, as well as copy personal messages while monitoring everything happening on the phone in real-time.

All he had to do was pointing his own homemade antenna at the phones whose information he had. The technique sent an exploit through WiFi, requiring no user interaction. It’s so scary that nowadays hacks don’t even involve any manual links or interactions like before.

Provided that the phone is in someone’s vicinity with such a contraption, its control could be obtained without even touch or action. Furthermore, the exploit was wormable, meaning the radio-proximity exploit can spread from one phone to another with no user interaction, according to reputable cybersecurity reporter Dan Goodin.

Beer posted a short video on YouTube displaying the prowess of his system when it hijacks 26 iPhones at the same time with a single broadcast. It’s both impressive and intimidating to watch that many phones die at varying rates with your own eyes.

In a longer video, he showed how the broadcast functions as well as how it could spread from phone to phone that wasn’t the initial target.

Beer also included cautions in this post, saying:

“Imagine the sense of power an attacker with such a capability must feel. As we all pour more and more of our souls into these devices, an attacker can gain a treasure trove of information on an unsuspecting target.”

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