After analyzing the submission, Apple informed us that they don’t see an issue with this vulnerability,” the researches stated in their note.This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. “We submitted this article and source code to Apple on January 2, 2020. They also clarified that Apple was informed about this vulnerability earlier this year. The pasteboard can potentially provide such intrusive apps with what they are going after - precise user location without the user’s consent.” What the researchers are trying to explain is that apps can use the pasteboard or clipboard functionality to gain access to certain data. “Fortunately, this method does not provide an intrusive app a high degree of accuracy. However, an app can infer a user’s location without requesting that from the user - by analyzing the geolocation of the user’s IP address, for example, they added.

“An average user assumes that apps cannot know their location unless the location services permission is granted,” the researches explain. This can happen completely transparently and without user consent.” While with iOS 13, Apple gave users complete choice to allow apps how and when they want apps to use their location services. Through the GPS coordinates contained in the embedded image properties, any app used by the user after copying such a photo to the pasteboard can read the location information stored in the image properties, and accurately infer a user’s precise location. The researchers explain, “iOS and iPadOS apps have unrestricted access to the systemwide general pasteboard. The Forbes report cites a note published by researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk where they ‘warned’ about a vulnerability where malicious apps can prove problematic on iOS devices. Researchers, as per a report by Forbes, have warned that hackers can pose a threat to the iPhones when people use the clipboard functionality - when they copy-paste text - by finding a ‘loophole’ in it. This is not to say that iPhone is impenetrable and immune to threats. Reports about malicious and dangerous apps appearing on Google Play Store outnumber those on Apple’s App Store by a considerable distance. In the tech circles, it is widely accepted that Apple’s iPhone and its operating system iOS are more secure than Google’s Android OS and other smartphones.

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