Apple Mobile Device Security: To Be Continued... 12 Years Later

The author revisits the security of Apple mobile devices 12 years after their previous article. The focus is on the trust architecture of the iPhone, which has become significantly more complex since 2014. Apple's core security concept is not based on a single secret key, but on a chain of interdependent boot states, where each level verifies the legitimacy of the previous one. While in 2014 the goal of hacking was to gain control over the BootROM or iBoot to use the device as a cryptographic oracle, today Apple has implemented additional layers of protection, including hardware cryptographic blocks and isolated computing environments. The author notes that modern security methods have become multi-layered, turning the security process into a complex system of "nesting dolls." The article provides a deep technical analysis of the evolution of Apple's boot chain security and explains why hacking modern devices requires overcoming much more complex barriers than a decade ago.