Apple Previews New iMessage and Apple ID Security Features Coming in 2023

In addition to expanding end-to-end encryption to many additional iCloud data categories on an optional basis, Apple today also announced two other new security features designed to protect against threats to user data in the cloud.

Apple advanced security iMessage Contact Key Verification screen Feature

iMessage Contact Key Verification

Apple says the new iMessage Contact Key Verification and Security Keys for Apple ID features will be available globally on the iPhone and other devices in 2023.

iMessage Contact Key Verification allows users who face "extraordinary digital threats," such as journalists, human rights activists, and government officials, to further verify that they are messaging only with the people they intend. In conversations between users who have enabled iMessage Contact Key Verification, users are alerted if a state-sponsored attacker or other malicious actor were ever to succeed breaching cloud servers and inserting their own device to eavesdrop on the conversation.

As an additional layer of security, iMessage Contact Key Verification users can compare a Contact Verification Code in person, on FaceTime, or through another secure call to further verify they are communicating only with whom they intend.

Apple advanced security Security Keys screen Feature

Security Keys for Apple ID

Second, Security Keys for Apple ID will give users the choice to use third-party physical security keys to further protect their account. For users who enable this feature, Security Keys strengthens Apple's two-factor authentication by requiring a hardware security key as one of the two factors instead of an authentication code.

"Our security teams work tirelessly to keep users' data safe, and with iMessage Contact Key Verification, Security Keys, and Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, users will have three powerful new tools to further protect their most sensitive data and communications," said Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi.

Related Forums: iOS 16, macOS Ventura

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Top Rated Comments

1557750 Avatar
34 months ago

I really wish the journalists on this site were a tiny bit more critical of Apple, rather than just copy pasting press releases. Even if this is true and implemented it still serves Apple to provide customers with a false sense of privacy.

Apple does not care about your privacy. They are ramping up their ads on all their platforms. They are still storing the key to decrypt all your messages into the backup which often is backed up on Google Data Centres.

They still haven't sworn off the entire photo library scanning they attempted last year.

The longer Apple fails to innovate majorly (think, ipod, iPhone, Watch) the more they will become a standard Coca Cola who will try to appease shareholders over customers. Apple in the wrong hands traps a lot of people into the walled garden.

The only safe app today is Signal and has been for the last half decade.
So you chime in roughly 2 times a year (over the last 7) to what, bash an article here and there without searching current articles first…?

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/12/07/apple-abandons-icloud-csam-detection/

They don’t trap anyone. No one has yet to be found cuffed to a chair in TC’s basement, being forced to buy one, let alone more devices from Apple. Don’t like the ecosystem, don’t buy the products.

???
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
samlikesmac Avatar
34 months ago

I really wish the journalists on this site were a tiny bit more critical of Apple, rather than just copy pasting press releases. Even if this is true and implemented it still serves Apple to provide customers with a false sense of privacy.

Apple does not care about your privacy. They are ramping up their ads on all their platforms. They are still storing the key to decrypt all your messages into the backup which often is backed up on Google Data Centres.

They still haven't sworn off the entire photo library scanning they attempted last year.

The longer Apple fails to innovate majorly (think, ipod, iPhone, Watch) the more they will become a standard Coca Cola who will try to appease shareholders over customers. Apple in the wrong hands traps a lot of people into the walled garden.

The only safe app today is Signal and has been for the last half decade.
CSAM plans have been cancelled as of today.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Unregistered 4U Avatar
34 months ago

The only safe app today is Signal and has been for the last half decade.
If only Signal made a phone. Because, as long as it’s always running on top of someone else’s OS and hardware, it’s only as secure as the underlying framework. Signal seems to trust Apple enough to run their app on it’s hardware.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DeepIn2U Avatar
34 months ago

More virtue signaling from Apple after hobbling AirDrop in China. It's almost comical at this point.
AirDrop limitation to 15mins has nothing to do with virtue signaling, it's about being spammed.

Anyhow this security is a necessary and great feature (Security Keys) to iOS and a BIG reason why RCS is not being implmented. Take that Google.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kaikidan Avatar
34 months ago
It would be nice if they also allowed mac login via yubico security keys besides biometry on the fancy keyboards or by proximity of the apple watch, more options are always good.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DeepIn2U Avatar
34 months ago

Yeah, been like that forever but suddenly Chinese citizens started using it to avoid government censors and suddenly Apple wants to fix the "spam problem". You can't be serious.
How a technology is created is its focus. How people’s situations in use cases to use it is a completely different thing.

In the UK many boys (not men, men don’t do this) would send pics of their swollen members to women that have AirPlay on by default to accept from anyone for years! There is charges for doing this btw. Look it up.

That’s long before recent events of lockdowns in mainland China where citizens there have to go against internet restrictions to leak out such atrocities therein.

Again technologies main use - sharing files (pics videos and documents & websites) amongst iPhone and Mac users is different form an end users purpose to use the tech doesn’t change what the tech is designed for or is.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)