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Zerodium Temporarily Stops Purchasing iOS Exploits Due to High Number of Submissions

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Zerodium this week announced that it will not be purchasing any iOS exploits for the next two to three months due to a high number of submissions. In other words, the company has so many security vulnerabilities at its disposal that it does not need any more.

ios 13 iphone ipad duo
Zerodium is an exploit acquisition platform that pays researchers for zero-day security vulnerabilities and then sells them to institutional customers like government organizations and law enforcement agencies. The company focuses on high-risk vulnerabilities, normally offering between $100,000 and $2 million per fully functional iOS exploit.


In an explicit tweet, Zerodium CEO Chaouki Bekrar said iOS security is in bad shape, noting that there are at least a few persistent zero-day security vulnerabilities affecting all iPhones and iPads. "Let's hope iOS 14 will be better," added Bekrar.

Apple has its own bug bounty program that offers between $5,000 and $1 million for security vulnerabilities in iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, or watchOS.

Tag: Zerodium

Top Rated Comments

Itada Avatar
Itada
77 months ago
The security could be better if they weren't operating a blackmarket of vulnerabilities and instead were reporting them to Apple. But hey, greed trumps the security of users I guess?
Score: 50 Votes (Like | Disagree)
X
xnsys
77 months ago
Hate to play devils advocate - but how do we know that the claim from the company is fact or fiction? If you wanted to be a company seeking the limelight what would you do? Would you pull a stunt like this? Or would you do something else?
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
M
Mike_313
77 months ago
Google has Project Zero.
Apple has Animojis.

Here you are.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
swingerofbirch
77 months ago
I stopped submitting bug reports to Apple years ago.

In my opinion Mac OS X 10.7 was Apple's inflection point of poorer software quality.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Blackstick Avatar
Blackstick
77 months ago

:O

I have seen security professionals say that Android has surpassed iOS in terms of security and hardening. So Apple needs to develop better tooling to shake out these bugs.
Now that’s a bold claim if only for the severe fragmentation and outdated OS’s on that side.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
J
julesme
77 months ago

The security could be better if they weren't operating a blackmarket of vulnerabilities and instead were reporting them to Apple. But hey, greed trumps the security of users I guess?
This may be an oversimplification. A marketplace should be a good thing, because it provides incentive to find (and fix) the vulnerabilities. Maybe the bigger issue here is Apple is not dedicating appropriate resources.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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