Enterprise Apps: Bypassing the IOS Gatekeeper

by Avi Bashan & Ohad Bobrov

A critical component of Apple's security model is how the App Store serves as gatekeeper for all code on iOS devices. This makes Apple's Developer Enterprise Program its achilles heel, allowing enterprises to bypass the store's code validation process and deploy their own apps directly to devices.

In recent years we have witnessed a rise in usage of iOS Enterprise apps. This fact is especially alarming when considering how these certificates can be easily used for illegitimate purposes by anyone from known state-actor spies like Hacking Team (RCS) to Chinese app piracy stores.

Apple has tried to mitigate these issues in iOS 9 by introducing new features like requiring user intervention in order to use enterprise signed apps, but are these measures enough? We'll demonstrate, using zero-day novel attack, how to leverage new security features in iOS 9 to install a malicious enterprise app on a user's phone.

In this session, we will give an overview on how enterprise-signed apps have been used to attack iOS devices and examples of usages discovered in the wild. We'll share real world statistics about the prevalence of Enterprise apps installed on iOS devices and show which enterprise apps are the most popular. In addition we'll reveal our zero day vulnerability.

[sngh]

woww. I had few enterprise apps profiles installed on my phone to get apps for free movies. I removed it all and updated to latest os. Thanks

[heathervanalstine]

I have been being Attacked for almost a year by a developer that changed every os system on all my devices smart tv's phones pc's laptop I located where my attacks was coming from so i called 911 they arrested me i was calm And they refused to look at anything i called the next day so they took me....lol...funny...but, , not..lol.. Network provider is no help if do block my attackers enterprise tells me i need to contact my administrator before i can use my device try to contact enterprise they will not respond with out a work e-mail to that enterprise but in the inspect page mode everything is blocked with java script they got me fired about 8 months ago broke up my happy home made my wife think i was crazy the amount i have spent trying to fix this the damages to private files the way everyone says they cant help or just look at me crazy im a plumber and trying to defend my home against top level developers Knowing i have no hope but from the time i wake up until i fall a sleep at my computer fighting them is all i do yard work house work being a father has all ended because i see the home porn streaming out with no way to stopped it the web cam recording my kid sleeping when i walked in i am going broke because i am hyper focused some say but how do i do business with out electronics they wont even let me have a phone