The curious security method of iMessage
Although far from the United States we do not see the Apple messaging service so implanted, the truth is that more and more users are turning to the well-known iMessage to communicate with their contacts. The fact that it can be used on both iPhone, iPad and Mac is something very well seen by users. And although Apple has always advocated for privacy, not many technical details were known until now about the level of security that exists in the encryption of messages.
Researcher Samuel Groß recently detailed how Apple tries to prevent iOS 14 users from potential threats through iMessage. This is known as BlastDoor and it carries out a series of inspections in a safe environment so that any type of malicious code can be identified within a message and that it can eventually interact with iOS.
To see it schematically, it is illustrated with the following image:
And so that all non-security specialists can understand it, How can we summarize this data? Well, basically you should know that before receiving a message on your device, its content will have passed through the more than 7 services that BlastDoor involves and it will have been possible to identify exactly whether or not it may be malicious. If it is, you will never receive that message and your device will be fully protected. If it is safe, you will receive it as normal. And is this process done on your iPhone? No, it is done through the servers, before it reaches your device in order not to compromise its integrity even during data processing. Does it take longer to receive the message for this? No, since what has been said is extremely fast data processing so that there is no lag other than the usual one due to your internet connection.
Can iMessage be a real option against WhatsApp?
Several weeks ago we posted a video on our YouTube channel showing alternatives to WhatsApp. And it is that, in case you had not heard, the popular messaging service reported at the beginning of the year that those users who did not agree to pass data to Facebook (its parent service) could not continue using it. The commercial purposes of this action were highly criticized and even caused the company to be forced to delay this option until May. The rest of the messaging applications began to notice a rebound in new users, with Telegram and Signal as the main beneficiaries.
In the aforementioned video that we discussed (and that you can see below) we discussed iMessage as an alternative because there are really many users who love this service. However, it must be recognized that in countries like Spain it is not only not very well known, but it is also practically impossible to use it with all contacts due to the higher adoption rate of Android compared to iOS, since iMessage is not available on devices that do not be from Apple. In any case, it is a real option that is there, which is perhaps less complete than others but we have already observed that it has careful security methods.
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