THRISSUR: Finding software flaws in social networking sites and gadgets has been a passion for Hemanth Joseph, an engineering student from Ramapuram, near Pala. He belongs to the brigade of ethical hackers who help software firms identify chinks in the software system of social networking sites and gadgets and correct them internally.
This time he has helped smartphone giant Apple to identify a security bug in its iPad Air iOS v10.1. A student of Amal Jyothi Engineering College, Kanjirappally, Hemanth had purchased a used iPad from eBay, an etailer, for his friend.
Locked by the previous owner all efforts to unlock it failed. However, Hemanth bypassed the high security lock and opened it. “Apple’s activation lock has a feature that’s designed to prevent strangers from accessing the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple Watch if they are lost or stolen,” Hemanth told ‘Express’. “This activation lock will get active when the owner uses ‘Find My iPhone’ option in the device.
The previous owner had activated this and sold it through eBay,” he said. This is not the first time Hemanth is cracking the security code of websites and smartphones. As reported by ‘Express’ in September, he had won bounties from Google, Twitter, Microsoft and AT&T for identifying security lapses. On September 12 he got a 7,500 dollar bounty from Google for reporting a bug.
He has earned `10 lakh by reporting software bugs. “I cracked the security code of Apple’s iPad Air iOS v10.1 on November 4, and mailed the details to the company. Apple product security team contacted me via email on November 5,” he said. Hemanth announced the Apple security bug on his blog. “I tried to get access to the device by using WiFi network. It asked for user name and password. I pasted some characters to the fields until the iPad froze. After waiting for a while, I pressed the lock button and it took me back to the welcome screen. It opened,” said Hemant.