It feels so ridiculous to me that a total stranger can send an iMessage message to me, including some attachment, and my phone will process that message in the kernel.
How hard would it be for apple to have a setting of "Only receive messages from mutual contacts", and require the stranger to first "request to be added to contacts" (a message which is tightly controlled, and obviously doesn't include a pdf file or webp or whatever), and have the apple imessage server drop all other messages from them until I accept.
Signal has "message requests". iMessage doesn't have "message requests", and receives messages in a unique path which goes through the kernel.
Like, sure the attacker could hit my Mom with a wrench and iMessage me a PDF exploit that way, but I feel like requiring physical access to one of my contact's phones raises the bar significantly over the current state of affairs.
How hard would it be for apple to have a setting of "Only receive messages from mutual contacts", and require the stranger to first "request to be added to contacts" (a message which is tightly controlled, and obviously doesn't include a pdf file or webp or whatever), and have the apple imessage server drop all other messages from them until I accept.
Signal has "message requests". iMessage doesn't have "message requests", and receives messages in a unique path which goes through the kernel.
Like, sure the attacker could hit my Mom with a wrench and iMessage me a PDF exploit that way, but I feel like requiring physical access to one of my contact's phones raises the bar significantly over the current state of affairs.