A “cyber pathogen” could be “lying dormant” in the iPhone at the centre of the legal battle between Apple and the FBI, ready to unleash havoc on the critical infrastructure of San Bernardino county. Apparently.
We’ve never actually heard of a “lying dormant cyber pathogen” before, but if Michael Ramos, San Bernardino’s district attorney, says we should be scared of it, we should be. Right?
The questionable claim comes from Ramos’s amicus brief in the case, filed with the US District Court on Thursday afternoon. In it, Ramos supports the FBI’s argument that Apple should be compelled to build a one-use version of its operating system to load on to the seized phone – used by the mass-murderer, but still technically property of his employer, San Bernardino county – in order to weaken the security and allow the Government to brute-force the shooter’s passcode.
Ramos gives a lot of evidence to back up his argument, but one claim in particular has been raising eyebrows. Ramos said: “The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino County’s infrastructure… and poses a continuing threat to the citizens of San Bernardino County”.
If you are uncertain what a “lying dormant cyber pathogen” actually is, don’t worry. So is everyone else. Ars Technica, which first reported Ramos’s comments, quotes iPhone forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski as saying that the DA is warning that a “magical unicorn might exist on this phone”.
“It sounds like he’s making up these terms as he goes,” Zdziarski continued. “I think what he’s trying to suggest is that [Syed Rizwan] Farook was somehow working with someone to install a program on the iPhone that would infect the local network with some kind of virus or worm or something along those lines.”
But … if a “cyber pathogen” really was on the phone, surely the last thing you’d want to do is unlock it and connect it to a network? Wouldn’t the safer thing to do be just chuck the phone in the microwave and never turn it on again?
The news of Ramos’s remarks sparked mirth amongst the cybersecurity community, who began poking their own holes in the claims.
If Farook had a "cyber pathogen" why would he wait until after he was dead to deploy it? He was a terrorist angry at work, so why wait?
— the grugq (@thegrugq) March 4, 2016
Cyber pathogens are so unspeakably dangerous that the open research community has wisely never published a single paper about them.
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) March 4, 2016
it doesn't even make any sense. it should be a "cyber pathogen, lying dormant". is the dormant cyber pathogen telling falsehoods?
— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) March 4, 2016
Maybe Ramos is just a big fan of William Gibson and cyberpunk fiction. Or maybe he’s on to something?
Probably not, though.
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