Ever since the Chinese government created regulations to prevent security researchers from participating in international hacking competitions like Pwn2Own, the annual Tianfu Cup, held in Chengdu, has become the perfect place for the Asian giant's best hackers to show off their skills. collective skill. The latest competition took place last weekend and the newest iPhone, the 13 Pro — running the latest and fully patched version of iOS 15.0.2 to be precise — was hacked in record time. Twice.

The Kunlun Lab team, whose CEO is a former Qihoo 360 CTO, was able to hack the iPhone 13 Pro live on stage using a mobile Safari web browser remote execution exploit code. And he did it in just 15 seconds.

Although behind this record it may have taken months of preparation, the result is still devastatingly fast. And all the details of the compromised device have not yet been revealed.

Kunlun Lab was not the only team that managed to hack the iPhone 13 Pro. Team Pangu, which has a history of jailbreaking Apple devices, cemented its reputation in this regard by claiming the $300,000 cash reward for jailbreaking. remotely on a fully patched iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 15.

Again, the full detail of how this was achieved has not been made public, although reports suggest it involved a one-click link that triggered remote exploit code that bypassed Safari's security mechanisms.

These teams of hackers will provide the details of their exploits to Apple so that it can release patches for these vulnerabilities. I would expect to see them in iOS 15.1 or in an upcoming iOS 15.0 security update.

Apple products weren't the only target, either. Security researchers have also successfully launched exploits against Windows 10, Microsoft Exchange, and Google Chrome, among others.