Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) recently introduced a new feature known as "Lockdown Mode" in order to safeguard users from potential hackers, who have typically been politicians or activists. The way that the Lockdown Mode works is by causing the iPhone to be less susceptible to malicious software or viruses, such as spyware, by lessening the amount of features that hackers could potentially reach.
Some of the features that Lockdown Mode has are: preventing certain message attachment types, disabling link previews, preventing specific web browsing technology, preventing invitations and FaceTime calls from certain places, and so on. Although Apple considers this mode to be both a personal choice and to be an "extreme" type of technological protection, it is also considered a very important part of safe technology usage, especially in today's times.
Apple's head of security engineering and architecture, Ivan Krstic, said, "While the vast majority of users will never be the victims of highly targeted cyberattacks, we will work tirelessly to protect the small number of users who are. That includes continuing to design defenses specifically for these users, as well as supporting researchers and organizations around the world doing critically important work in exposing mercenary companies that create these digital attacks."
According to Apple, it will keep adding new features in order to strengthen Lockdown Mode and to keep technology usage much safer. In order to encourage partnership with various security research teams, Apple has also decided to build a new category that is part of the Apple Security Bounty program. This feature will essentially help researchers to establish further protections when it comes to overall security features.
Representatives from the Apple company have said that they would like to strike a balance between usability and finding protections for security purposes. Apple has said that it would like to direct a $10 million grant to the Dignity and Justice Fund, which will hopefully endorse further research on these types of problems that people may face.
"We're doing all we can, alongside a number of investigative journalists working this beat, but that's been it, and that's a huge asymmetry," said Ron Deibert, professor of political science and director of the Citizen Lab cybersecurity researchers at Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at University of Toronto. "You have an enormous industry that's very lucrative and almost entirely unregulated, profiting from huge contracts from governments that have an appetite to engage in this type of espionage."