{"id":40584,"date":"2021-04-22T08:16:06","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T08:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/"},"modified":"2021-04-22T08:16:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T08:16:06","slug":"apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple, you&#8217;ve AirDrop&#8217;d the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apple&#8217;s AirDrop has a couple of potentially annoying privacy weaknesses that Cupertino is so far refusing to address even though a solution has been offered.<\/p>\n<p>A bug-hunting team at Technische Universit\u00e4t Darmstadt in Germany reverse engineered AirDrop \u2013 iOS and macOS&#8217;s ad-hoc over-the-air file-sharing service \u2013 and found that senders and receivers may leak their contact details in the process. More than a billion people are said to be at risk of this, in that there are now more than a billion active iPhones at any one time. Despite the team alerting Apple to the oversight in May 2019, and suggesting ways to address it last October, the iGiant hasn&#8217;t issued a fix.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We started looking at the protocols in 2017,&#8221; Dr Milan Stute at the uni&#8217;s Secure Mobile Networking Lab told <i>The Register<\/i> on Wednesday. &#8220;We reverse engineered a lot of stuff and found two major issues.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"adun\" data-pos=\"top\" data-raptor=\"condor\" data-xsm=\",button,fluid,mpu,\" data-sm=\",button,fluid,mpu,\" data-md=\",button,banner_plus,fluid,mpu\"> <noscript> <a href=\"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/jump?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0\" alt> <\/a> <\/noscript> <\/div>\n<p>AirDrop sets up a TLS-encrypted direct peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection between Apple gear for sharing files. The Darmstadt team analyzed the proprietary Wi-Fi link-layer protocol, known as the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/owlink.org\/wiki\/#what-is-apple-wireless-direct-link-awdl\">Apple Wireless DirectLink<\/a>, and the Bluetooth connections AirDrop uses, and found a way to potentially obtain victims&#8217; contact details \u2013 typically their phone number or email address.<\/p>\n<div class=\"promo_article\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/regmedia.co.uk\/2015\/09\/15\/apple_984756984356.jpg?x=174&amp;amp;y=115&amp;amp;crop=1\" width=\"174\" height=\"115\" alt=\"airdrop\"><\/p>\n<h2 title=\"Clicked no? No matter, hackers can replace your apps anyway \u2013 so get updating to version 9\">AirDrop hole deposits stealth malware on all pre-iOS 9 Apple devices<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/2015\/09\/16\/airdrop_hole_malware_pre_ios_9\/\"><span>FROM THE ARCHIVE<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<p>When an AirDrop connection is attempted between a sender and a receiver, the sender transmits over the air a message containing a hash, or digital fingerprint, of its user&#8217;s email address or phone number as part of an authentication handshake. In response, if the sender is recognized, the receiver transmits back its hash.<\/p>\n<p>The hashing function should act as a form of one-way encryption: you shouldn&#8217;t be able to deduce what the original data was, just that it generated the given fingerprint. Unfortunately, Apple uses the 20-year-old SHA-256 algorithm to perform the hashing. Thus, it&#8217;s possible to crack the SHA-256 hash of an AirDrop user&#8217;s phone number and discover the original digits in milliseconds, Christian Weinert, of the university&#8217;s Cryptography and Privacy Engineering Group, told us.<\/p>\n<p>Email address hashes are harder to break, though one could use databases of leaked email addresses and dictionary attacks on @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, and similar addresses to relatively quickly reverse an email address hash to the original.<\/p>\n<div aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"adun\" data-pos=\"mid\" data-raptor=\"eagle\" data-xsm=\",button,mpu_plusplus,\" data-sm=\",button,mpu_plusplus,\" data-md=\",button,mpu_plusplus,\"> <noscript> <a href=\"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/jump?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=3&amp;c=33YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=3&amp;c=33YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0\" alt> <\/a> <\/noscript> <\/div>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t have concrete numbers on email hash cracking time, but look at the Facebook leak: there&#8217;s over 500 million addresses that could be used,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There are also online services that will do this for you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The upshot is that these two scenarios are possible, it is claimed:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A miscreant could set up a system that listens out for iPhones, iPads, and Macs scanning for nearby AirDrop-enabled devices. When one of these iOS and macOS machines scans the area, it sends out a message containing its user&#8217;s contact information as a hash, which can be recorded and cracked. This contact information could then be used for spear-phishing, say, in a targeted environment.<\/li>\n<li>A miscreant seeking to work their way into a targeted environment could figure out an email address or phone number likely to be recognized by nearby devices \u2013 it could be a boss&#8217;s office phone number, for example. The miscreant transmits AirDrop requests to receivers in the vicinity, and sends that common contact detail as a hash in the handshaking message. The nearby receivers recognize the hashed contact detail and reply with a message containing their contact details as hashes. Bingo, you can now determine the email addresses and phone numbers of surrounding AirDrop-capable devices from harvested hashes, again for spear-phishing purposes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are somewhat esoteric vulnerabilities, and not something for the public at large to really worry about, but annoying nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p>Observing responsible disclosure guidelines, the team notified Apple in May 2019 about the shortcomings, and Cupertino said it would look into it. A few months later, the Apple Bleee project also <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/hexway.io\/research\/apple-bleee\/\">discovered<\/a> one of the vulnerabilities. In July last year, Apple said it did &#8220;not have any updates on new features or any changes to mitigate the underlying issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Funnily enough, the Darmstadt team did, and three months later sent Apple a solution for the issue, publishing the code as <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/privatedrop.github.io\/\">PrivateDrop<\/a> on GitHub. Their approach thwarts hash cracking and typically adds less than a second to the time needed to establish an AirDrop connection.<\/p>\n<div aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"adun\" data-pos=\"top\" data-raptor=\"falcon\" data-xsm=\",button,dbutton,mpu_plus,dmpu,\" data-sm=\",button,dbutton,mpu_plus,dmpu,\" data-md=\",button,dbutton,mpu_plus,dmpu,\"> <noscript> <a href=\"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/jump?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=4&amp;c=44YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=4&amp;c=44YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D426raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0\" alt> <\/a> <\/noscript> <\/div>\n<p>The Darmstadt team&#8217;s paper [<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/system\/files\/sec21fall-heinrich.pdf\">PDF<\/a>] on the above is now published, and will be <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/usenixsecurity21\/presentation\/heinrich\">presented<\/a> at the USENIX Security &#8217;21 conference in August. Apple has received a full copy of the paper, and apparently told the team it appreciates &#8220;the updates and working with researchers such as yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the PrivateDrop code isn&#8217;t something the average Apple user can just install to protect themselves. &#8220;Basically what we did was proof of concept code, but to deploy you would need the help of Apple,&#8221; Weinert said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not that we can provide an app, this needs to be put in the operating systems.&#8221; \u00ae<\/p>\n<div class=\"boxout\" readability=\"11.590243902439\">\n<p><b>Members of the AirDrop privacy paper<\/b> are also behind <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/usenixsecurity21\/presentation\/stute\">another<\/a> USENIX Security &#8217;21 study into other vulnerabilities in Apple&#8217;s wireless protocols, demonstrating how they can be disrupted, hijacked, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> READ MORE <a href=\"https:\/\/go.theregister.com\/feed\/www.theregister.com\/2021\/04\/22\/airdrop_contact_leaks\/\">HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Too bad there&#8217;s no suggested solution&#8230; oh, wait Apple&#8217;s AirDrop has a couple of potentially annoying privacy weaknesses that Cupertino is so far refusing to address even though a solution has been offered.\u2026 READ MORE HERE&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-register"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Apple, you&#039;ve AirDrop&#039;d the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing 2026 | ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News | ThreatsHub.org | Cloud Security &amp; Cyber Threats Analysis Hub. 100% Free OSINT Threat Intelligent and Cybersecurity News.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Apple, you&#039;ve AirDrop&#039;d the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing 2026 | ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News | ThreatsHub.org | Cloud Security &amp; Cyber Threats Analysis Hub. 100% Free OSINT Threat Intelligent and Cybersecurity News.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-22T08:16:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"TH Author\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@threatshub\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@threatshub\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"TH Author\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"TH Author\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/12e0a8671ff89a863584f193e7062476\"},\"headline\":\"Apple, you&#8217;ve AirDrop&#8217;d the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-22T08:16:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":881,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\\\/gampad\\\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\\\/6978\\\/reg_security\\\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0\",\"articleSection\":[\"The Register\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/\",\"name\":\"Apple, you've AirDrop'd the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing 2026 | ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\\\/gampad\\\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\\\/6978\\\/reg_security\\\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-22T08:16:06+00:00\",\"description\":\"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News | ThreatsHub.org | Cloud Security & Cyber Threats Analysis Hub. 100% Free OSINT Threat Intelligent and Cybersecurity News.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\\\/gampad\\\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\\\/6978\\\/reg_security\\\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\\\/gampad\\\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\\\/6978\\\/reg_security\\\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Apple, you&#8217;ve AirDrop&#8217;d the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News\",\"description\":\"%%focuskw%% Threat Intel \u2013 Threat Intel Services \u2013 CyberIntelligence \u2013 Cyber Threat Intelligence - Threat Intelligence Feeds - Threat Intelligence Reports - CyberSecurity Report \u2013 Cyber Security PDF \u2013 Cybersecurity Trends - Cloud Sandbox \u2013- Threat IntelligencePortal \u2013 Incident Response \u2013 Threat Hunting \u2013 IOC - Yara - Security Operations Center \u2013 SecurityOperation Center \u2013 Security SOC \u2013 SOC Services - Advanced Threat - Threat Detection - TargetedAttack \u2013 APT \u2013 Anti-APT \u2013 Advanced Protection \u2013 Cyber Security Services \u2013 Cybersecurity Services -Threat Intelligence Platform\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"alternateName\":\"Threatshub.org\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"ThreatsHub.org\",\"alternateName\":\"Threatshub.org\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/05\\\/Threatshub_Favicon1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/05\\\/Threatshub_Favicon1.jpg\",\"width\":432,\"height\":435,\"caption\":\"ThreatsHub.org\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/threatshub\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.threatshub.org\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/12e0a8671ff89a863584f193e7062476\",\"name\":\"TH Author\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/066276f086d5155df79c850206a779ad368418a844da0182ce43f9cd5b506c3d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/066276f086d5155df79c850206a779ad368418a844da0182ce43f9cd5b506c3d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/066276f086d5155df79c850206a779ad368418a844da0182ce43f9cd5b506c3d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"TH Author\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Apple, you've AirDrop'd the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing 2026 | ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News","description":"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News | ThreatsHub.org | Cloud Security & Cyber Threats Analysis Hub. 100% Free OSINT Threat Intelligent and Cybersecurity News.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Apple, you've AirDrop'd the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing 2026 | ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News","og_description":"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News | ThreatsHub.org | Cloud Security & Cyber Threats Analysis Hub. 100% Free OSINT Threat Intelligent and Cybersecurity News.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/","og_site_name":"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News","article_published_time":"2021-04-22T08:16:06+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"TH Author","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@threatshub","twitter_site":"@threatshub","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"TH Author","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/"},"author":{"name":"TH Author","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/12e0a8671ff89a863584f193e7062476"},"headline":"Apple, you&#8217;ve AirDrop&#8217;d the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing","datePublished":"2021-04-22T08:16:06+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/"},"wordCount":881,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0","articleSection":["The Register"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/","url":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/","name":"Apple, you've AirDrop'd the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing 2026 | ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0","datePublished":"2021-04-22T08:16:06+00:00","description":"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News | ThreatsHub.org | Cloud Security & Cyber Threats Analysis Hub. 100% Free OSINT Threat Intelligent and Cybersecurity News.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0","contentUrl":"https:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?co=1&amp;iu=\/6978\/reg_security\/front&amp;sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&amp;tile=2&amp;c=2YIO4xzDBcJjnYuxvkSw@iwAAAIk&amp;t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/apple-youve-airdropd-the-ball-academics-detail-ways-to-leak-contact-info-of-nearby-ithings-for-spear-phishing\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Apple, you&#8217;ve AirDrop&#8217;d the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/","name":"ThreatsHub Cybersecurity News","description":"%%focuskw%% Threat Intel \u2013 Threat Intel Services \u2013 CyberIntelligence \u2013 Cyber Threat Intelligence - Threat Intelligence Feeds - Threat Intelligence Reports - CyberSecurity Report \u2013 Cyber Security PDF \u2013 Cybersecurity Trends - Cloud Sandbox \u2013- Threat IntelligencePortal \u2013 Incident Response \u2013 Threat Hunting \u2013 IOC - Yara - Security Operations Center \u2013 SecurityOperation Center \u2013 Security SOC \u2013 SOC Services - Advanced Threat - Threat Detection - TargetedAttack \u2013 APT \u2013 Anti-APT \u2013 Advanced Protection \u2013 Cyber Security Services \u2013 Cybersecurity Services -Threat Intelligence Platform","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#organization"},"alternateName":"Threatshub.org","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"ThreatsHub.org","alternateName":"Threatshub.org","url":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/coredata\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Threatshub_Favicon1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/coredata\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Threatshub_Favicon1.jpg","width":432,"height":435,"caption":"ThreatsHub.org"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/threatshub"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/12e0a8671ff89a863584f193e7062476","name":"TH Author","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/066276f086d5155df79c850206a779ad368418a844da0182ce43f9cd5b506c3d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/066276f086d5155df79c850206a779ad368418a844da0182ce43f9cd5b506c3d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/066276f086d5155df79c850206a779ad368418a844da0182ce43f9cd5b506c3d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"TH Author"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}