There Is No Camera Lock Screen Bypass in iOS 5.1
There have been reports (and here) of iOS 5.1 containing a camera bypass tied to the new camera shortcut on the lock screen. The people who have reported this are sadly confused about the security timeout enforced by iOS’s Require Passcode setting (Settings > General > Passcode Lock > Require Passcode). If your Require Passcode setting is set to anything other than Immediately, then your device (and the camera roll from the camera shortcut) will be accessible for the entire duration of time specified (ie. 1 minute or 5 minutes).
As always, the best setting for Require Passcode is Immediately. That way you know that when you lock your device, it is actually locked, and will prevent someone from gaining access to it without the passcode within the minutes following the ‘lock’.
Sadly people seem all too eager to rush and report on iOS vulns before actually verifying them.
TDLR; There is no lock screen bypass in iOS 5.1 using the new camera shortcut. They were wrong.
iPad Lock Screen Bypass Vulnerability using Smart Cover [Patched]
Marc Gurman at 9to5Mac has discovered a vulnerability on the iPad that allows for a limited bypass of the device’s lockscreen. Anyone with an iPad Smart Cover (or fridge magnet) can gain access to the previously-open app (or the home screen if no app was open).
By holding the power button to bring up the ‘Power Off’ screen, closing the smart cover, re-opening it (or just sliding a fridge magnet along the right-hand side of the device), and clicking cancel, the attacker will be dropped into the screen that was open before the iPad was locked. If the attacker gets dropped into the home screen, then they’ll be able to see the installed apps, but won’t be able to open anything. If Safari or Mail (or any other app) was the open when the device was locked, then the attacker would have access to that app.
Unlike Siri being available from the lock screen, which is not a security flaw (an unintended behaviour), this one actually is; and although an attacker does not get full control of the iPad, the severity depends on whether a sensitive app was being used before the device was locked.
Luckily it is possible to protect yourself against this bug in the interim by disabling Smart Covers in Settings > General > iPad Cover Lock/Unlock > Off. Expect Apple to patch this in iOS 5.0.1. Check out 9to5′s video below for a demonstration:
[Update] Apple did indeed patch this bug in iOS 5.0.1. Those of you who disabled your Smart Covers for security purposes can now re-enable them!
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