A spy agency contractor is reportedly offering a whopping $1 million (£645,000) bounty to any technological wizard who can manage to hack the new iPhone and iPad software remotely.
Today, a new security industry firm known as Zerodium announced it will pay the incredible seven-figure sum to anyone who gives the company a hacking technique that can take over an iOS9 device – be it via a web page, a vulnerable app on the victim’s device, or by text message.
The company has even said they would be willing to pay the amount multiple times, for different techniques, although it will probably cap the payouts at $3 million (which is fair enough, really).
In a statement, they said:
Due to the increasing number of security improvements and the effectiveness of exploit mitigations in place, Apple’s iOS is currently the most secure mobile OS. But don’t be fooled, secure doesn’t mean unbreakable, it just means that iOS has currently the highest cost and complexity of vulnerable exploitation and here’s where the Million Dollar iOS9 Bug Bounty comes into play.
Hackers have long sold their secret techniques to companies and agencies, but it is usually a secretive process. This press release pushes the industry right into the spotlight.
Unfortunately, this is pretty much Mission Impossible levels of complex – iOS hacks are notoriously difficult and becoming increasingly harder to crack with each update. To be honest, we have absolutely no idea about hacking techniques but with this much money up for grabs, we’ll probably give it a go!
