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Apple's biggest announcement today was Memory Integrity Enforcement ( a bit techie, but really good )
https://victorwynne.com/memory-integrity-enforcement/Apple announced Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) today as part of their September event, and it feels like one of those moments when a technology company quietly drops a new feature that will end up radically changing computing. Built into Apple hardware and software in all models of iPhone 17 and iPhone Air, this new feature offers always-on memory safety protection that works behind the scenes to stop some of the nastiest digital attacks before they can impact the device.
Memory corruption attacks work by exploiting boundary violations in how programs access memory. When software tries to read or write data outside of its allocated space, either through bugs or malicious intent, attackers can use these violations to take control of your device.
MIE represents what Apple calls “the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.” That’s a bold claim, but when you dig into what they’ve built, it does not at all seem like an exaggeration. This isn’t just a security patch or minor improvement. It’s the culmination of five years of hardware and software work that fundamentally changes how iPhones protect themselves.
snip
Here’s how it works in practice: every piece of memory that gets allocated on your iPhone now gets tagged with a secret code. When an app or process wants to access that memory, the hardware checks if it has the right code. If the codes match, access is granted. If they don’t, the system immediately shuts down the attempt and terminates the problematic process. The system constantly verifies that every memory access request is legitimate and authorized.
Memory corruption attacks work by exploiting boundary violations in how programs access memory. When software tries to read or write data outside of its allocated space, either through bugs or malicious intent, attackers can use these violations to take control of your device.
MIE represents what Apple calls “the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.” That’s a bold claim, but when you dig into what they’ve built, it does not at all seem like an exaggeration. This isn’t just a security patch or minor improvement. It’s the culmination of five years of hardware and software work that fundamentally changes how iPhones protect themselves.
snip
Here’s how it works in practice: every piece of memory that gets allocated on your iPhone now gets tagged with a secret code. When an app or process wants to access that memory, the hardware checks if it has the right code. If the codes match, access is granted. If they don’t, the system immediately shuts down the attempt and terminates the problematic process. The system constantly verifies that every memory access request is legitimate and authorized.
This really is different, and of course, hackers try to corrupt memory by every means they can find.
Being hardware and software, (of course) it requires one of these new phones to take advantage of it.