In article , Alan Browne
wrote:


the first time an app wants to access the camera, microphone, location,
photos, contacts, bluetooth, clipboard and many other things, it asks
for permission:

Only if it plays by the rules.

Apps have no choice about the rules. The rules are invoked by iOS on
attempts to access those things.

It's up to the user to control that via iOS's permissions management.

correct.

as i said before, which was snipped, if an app tries to get around
that, either by using private undocumented apis or any other method,
the app will be rejected from being in the app store until the issue is
resolved.

android also has permissions preventing a rogue app from accessing
things it shouldn't, however, it's significantly easier to get around
it than on ios.

Or are Apple-hackers not as skilled as Win-hackers ?

Apple OS SW/HW designers run rings around PC and Windows OS designers.
That's why the FBI had to hire an Israeli firm to break into an iPhone
using a mixed hw and sw attack.

one of the main reasons why there's so much malware on windows and
android is because it's so incredibly easy to do, requiring very little
skill.

hacking macs and iphones, while not impossible, is orders of magnitude
more difficult and getting more difficult with each new os version.

in other words, 'apple-hackers' are far more skilled than 'win-hackers'.

That said, I'd surmise that on Mac OS it's easier for malware to access
things like the microphone and camera than on iOS because of the
somewhat generic motherboard hardware design used in x86 Macs.

the reason is because sandboxing is not required on a mac.

also, not all macs have a camera or microphone to exploit.

(Also why a large number of PC's can run Mac OS with a little help from
some hackerware - even on AMD machines per one site.)

And that said, Apple are always routing more and more h/w via custom
chips where authorization can be enforced by the OS.

With the change from intel to Apple's ARM based chips, making Malware
for Macs will become all but impossible other than "socially engineered"
hacks.

apple silicon won't have much effect.

intel macs have the t2 security chip already, for example.