Apple, AI & Data Privacy in the WWDC 24 | Don't forget the old school attacks...
CyberInsights #143 - Apple goes all AI (Apple Intelligence) | You have a package...
ChatGPT comes to Apple
What does it mean for data privacy?
The Apple WWDC 24, as expected, was all about Artificial Intelligence. We expected it. Apple is always a little late to the game, but when it arrives, it changes the game.
This time round, we were in for a surprise. Apple decided to integrate with ChatGPT.
“Privacy. That’s iPhone” - ran a much watched ad campaign a long time ago. That was Apple taking a dig at Google and Meta for selling user data to make money. Cut to today where Apple bakes ChatGPT into its OS. It’s a brave new world that we live in. (Don’t forget Microsoft and the new Recall)
In Apple’s defence, they say this:
You control when ChatGPT is used and will be asked before any of your information is shared. Anyone can access ChatGPT for free, without creating an account. ChatGPT subscribers can connect accounts to access paid features within these experiences.
To put things in context — ChatGPT, is owned by Microsoft.
Private Cloud Compute
It’s not all ChatGPT for the new Apple devices though. There’s the new Private Cloud Compute.
Apple has always been a proponent of the on-device processing - ‘data does not leave your machine’ - approach. With AI and the huge compute required by LLMs to process requests, it is not easy to do that on-device.
The solution? — send data to the cloud.
What about data security? That’s where the new term come in — “Private Cloud Compute”.
Apple has grand plans for Private Cloud Compute to achieve the following objectives:
Stateless computation on personal user data
Enforceable guarantees
No privileged runtime access
Non - target-ability
Verifiable transparency
This Apple blog post has a detailed list of tech features that they hope will achieve the required level of privacy. I hope that they are able to achieve all the privacy that they are setting out to achieve.
Take Action:
In spite of all the hype about data privacy and “Private Cloud Compute”, the fact remains that data leaving a device increases the attack surface. Anything you do to protect that data still does not reduce the risk to previous levels.
Keep an eye out for the release of the new Apple operating systems that have Apple Intelligence.
Between Apple Intelligence and Microsoft Recall, how about visiting a site that will help? Here is the link to a site that I track often and is probably the solution to all our AI woes with Apple and Microsoft. :)
As traditional as they can get
Not all attacks need to be on AI poisoning of LLMs. The simple attacks continue…
As I was writing this post, thinking about all the esoteric ways in which my personal data can be compromised by using Apple’s new iOS with its ChatGPT connection and the Private Cloud Compute, I received this message.
For a minute, I wondered - “What have I ordered that is awaiting delivery?” Did Framework finally decide to send me their laptop? Wait, Framework does not deliver to India.
And then I saw the From field. I did my usual research.
The domain was registered just a few days ago:
Clearly this has already been reported as the browser no longer navigates to the website:
(I tried this in a sandboxed environment with a different browser, just to be extra careful.)
The attack is a very simple variation of the Amazon attack - “Your parcel is awaiting delivery. Make a small payment and take it”.
Still works in the time of AI.
Take Action:
The new AI risks are important, no doubt, but we must not forget that the traditional attacks still work. The need for end user awareness and education on the new variants of the traditional social engineering attacks still exists. Maybe, we can use AI to create the training content, though…