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Beware of Using the Clipboard on iPads and iPhones

February 25, 2020

ZDNet reported "…that all the apps on your iPhone and iPad can snoop on whatever you copy to the system clipboard (called pasteboard on iOS)." Apple doesn't think there's a problem. Since Apple's clipboard activity is shared between devices, any app can get access to the data including the Mac pasteboard. Even if Apple doesn't think this is bad, many security researchers do. Researchers at Mysk revealed a new security demo that shows how a "less than responsible" app could get detailed user information.

"A user may unwittingly expose their precise location to apps by simply copying a photo taken by the built-in Camera app to the general pasteboard. Through the GPS coordinates contained in the embedded image properties, any app used by the user after copying such a photo to the pasteboard can read the location information stored in the image properties, and accurately infer a user's precise location. This can happen completely transparently and without user consent."

What, no app permission settings? Sorry Apple, that sounds like a problem to me.

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