December 27

Saint Triangulation, of Four Zero-Days in a Chain

Patron of iPhones, iMessage attachments you never open, and undocumented hardware features.

Life

On 27 December 2023, at 37C3, Kaspersky researchers Larin, Bezvershenko and Kucherin revealed the details of Operation Triangulation: a chain of four zero-days against iPhones, opened by an iMessage attachment with no click at all. The most astonishing piece was CVE-2023-38606, which used an undocumented hardware feature of Apple chips to bypass memory protections: 'the last hardware mystery', as they called it.

Prayer

O Saint Triangulation, who enters through a message never opened and exploits what no one documented, keep our phones updated and suspicious. Amen.

How to celebrate

Celebrated by updating iOS, enabling Lockdown Mode, and keeping an eye on odd battery drain.

The message you don't open is the one that opens you.