Interesting to hear such things discussed at that level. Turning it off is suggested to get rid of compromised background processes that might be spying on users. Obviously, this only help against malware that isn’t permanently installed on a phone.
This is good advice if your phone is actively being hacked in real time when you turn it off. Otherwise all you’re doing is delaying or temporarily interrupting any data collection that’s going on in the background. Any apps that are sophisticated enough to run undetected by a normal user are also going to restart themselves as soon as the phone boots up again.
Also, if you are being targeted by a hacker that is knowledgeable enough to actively get into your device (especially an iPhone) without physical access then you’re better off destroying it and buying a new one, along with doing a full reset of all of your passwords, 2FA setup, and anything else you think you’re relying on for “security”.
That is not true. Many attacks (e.g. the recently revealed Operation Triangulation) do not have persistence.
Yup, a lot of very sophisticated mobile malware does not have persistence. His advice holds up.
you’re better off destroying it and buying a new one
Um, what? Spending a thousand bucks on a new phone, which they will probably infect almost immediately, is poor advice.
If I was in that situation the first thing I’d do is disconnect it from the internet. The next thing I’d do is lock everything down so the attacker can’t use the phone to do any harm (reset passwords, etc, and don’t log into those accounts from your phone).
As if any spyware worth it’s salt didn’t install itself as service with an innocuous name. Something like “Facebook” or “TikTok”.
I have both of those spywares installed!!
undefined> Something like “Facebook” or “TikTok”.
I wouldn’t call those innocuous at all, lol.
That was my initial reaction too, but I believe there is also a good amount of attacks that use 0-day exploits and might not have an angle for permanence yet.
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There’s actually a 0-day exploit affecting safari on every single apple device right now, and not a gentle one. There is a fix, but you have to update iOS to get it.
Also a MAJOR 0-day affecting teams, but the exploit is exploiting core app functionality so Microsoft don’t want to fix it.
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My ipad only has 50MB of free ram after the OS loads as it is, I’m not updating ios any further - and I’d probably be just about willing to pay to downgrade back to ipados 12 to make it usable again
Not to mention whatever is running secretly in the modem’s computer.
I don’t have an iPhone. Can you schedule a nightly restart?
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Something this might accidentally do is apply an update which would indeed be a boon to security.
Fun fact, the pegasus spyware, yes the NSO group one, will be removed by this. This is to avoid leaving evidence of an infection on the phone. (the phone can be reinfected in seconds of course)
But without my phone how will I know when 5 minutes have passed?
/sThese days, I don’t think phones even turn off completely. Closing to sleeping. And only a portion of background services will stop and restart.
Try holding your power button for a bit of time or letting your battery run down. Phones absolutely turn off
What I’m saying is - even though it says “shut down”, it’s not doing a real shut down. Yes, you could fully let the battery run dry. But that takes 12 hours and you can’t do it once a day. Plus it ruins your battery’s capacity.
It doesn’t seem like a hibernate though - it always has to reload the homescreen and doesn’t remember processes from before the reboot and sk on.
What are you saying it does instead, if it’s not a real shut down? What is it about it that makes it not a real shutdown? As compared to a computer shutdown.
I think this might be true for iOS, isn’t the case on Android.
Well I guess mobile phone marketing can use this an reason for poor battery life. It’s now a security feature to force users to reboot every 12 hours.
Does setting your phone to limit background processes to 4 (vs the standard limit) in developer settings potentially have a similar effect? If it periodically kills the nefarious process so it can run something else as you usd your phone?
