Apple has launched a new security research device program that will provide special iPhones to bug hunters and professional hackers.
“This program is designed to help improve security for all iOS users, bring more researchers to iPhone, and improve efficiency for those who already work on iOS security,” Apple notes.
The program features iPhones dedicated exclusively to security research, with unique code execution and containment policies. The iPhones will allow researchers to run custom commands and also include debugging tools that will allow them to run their code.
Apple told TechCrunch that these devices aren’t new, but that this is the first time they are being provided to researchers directly.
The tech giant notes that it hopes this program will be a collaboration, and that researchers will have access to a forum where they can communicate with Apple engineers.
Apple hopes that by giving security researchers a pre-jailbroken iPhone, it can make it easier for them to discover vulnerabilities within the software that have yet to be found.
With this new program, Apple is asking the researchers to privately disclose the vulnerabilities that they have found so that its engineers can address and fix them. The researchers will then be paid accordingly depending on the severity of the bug.
Source: Apple, TechCrunch
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