new iOS 10 recently made headlines after MIT Technology Review revealed that the company had left the core of the mobile operating system unencrypted.
Yes, the first developer preview of iOS 10 released at WWDC has an unencrypted kernel!
Many of the users were quite surprised and claimed that Apple had made a mistake by leaving the kernel unencrypted in iOS 10, and therefore, it will be restored in the next beta version of the operating system.
However, Apple managed to confirm to everyone that the company left the iOS 10 kernel unencrypted on purpose, as the kernel cache does not contain any critical or private information for users.
In iOS, the kernel is responsible for things like security and how apps are able to access parts of an iPhone or iPad.
But, why would Apple do this?
As an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch:
“Because by leaving the iOS 10 kernel unencrypted, the company was able to optimize the operating system's performance without compromising security”
The kernel is the heart of any operating system. Apple has always kept the kernel under various layers of protection in previous versions of iOS, leaving developers and researchers in the dark.
So, the unencrypted kernel could help developers and security researchers examine its code more closely and find where security holes exist. After all, the more people looking for bugs, the easier it will be to discover and fix problems.
MIT Technology Review also pointed out that this could prevent government and legal agencies from exploiting vulnerabilities to break into locked iOS devices, as the FBI did to hack the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone.
