REvil hacking: documents revealed to be useful to repairers

A few weeks ago, Apple, via its supplier Quanta, was the target of a hacker group called REvil. The latter demanded a ransom from the Californian firm, threatening to disclose confidential documents about future products. A diagram of a new generation MacBook Pro was notably published on the darknet.

And if this affair no longer makes much noise, without really knowing whether the ransom was indeed paid by the deadline of May 7, the revelations have unexpected consequences.

Indeed, as reportedour English-speaking colleagues at Vice, MacBook Pro schematics posted on the web benefit Apple hardware repairers. Because even if these are future laptops seen on technical papers, the specialists were able to draw someessential information in particular to better understand the general functioning of MacBook Pros.

Operations such as data recovery were therefore made easier by access to secret documents.

Repairers push Apple to be more flexible on repairs

Louis Rossman, Apple repairer and YouTuber (1.57 million subscribers) is campaigning for Apple, but also other manufacturers, tofacilitates repairs of its products. It does not in any way want to encourage hacks like the one carried out by the REvil group, even if it profits from the leaked schemes. He specifies that he would prefer Apple to share this information directly with repairers and even sayswilling to pay for access.

For Justin Ashford, another big supporter of the right to repair, the fact that Apple insists on not releasing the electronic diagrams of its devices is overzealous. He does not think that the publication of these documents opens a breach in terms of technological secrecy and the risk of copying.

Apple is still a poor student in terms of repairability for its products. Very often, devices marked with the apple get poor ratings at iFixit, with tech teardown specialists noting the ease of repair of the products tested.

However, we can welcomethe recent appearanceof repairability notes on the product sheets of the Apple online Store in France, even if the initiative obviously does not come directly from the American. It was simply a matter of submitting to a new French law against waste.

Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.