iPhone 16 better thwarts hackers who use the camera or microphone to spy on you

Kerry Wan/ZDNET

The iPhone 16 sports a new security feature that aims to protect you against spyware and similar threats better. Known as "Secure Exclave," the enhanced privacy technology will visually notify you if your camera or microphone is being used without your permission. But since the technology is hardware-based, it's more resistant to hackers who try to tap into those sensors without triggering an alert.

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The feature itself isn't new. "Secure Exclave" first appeared earlier this year with the launch of the M4 iPad Pro. Now that same tech has landed on all four new iPhone 16 models, according to 9to5Mac, which confirmed that it's baked into the iOS 18 firmware and present in the A18 chip in the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus and the A18 Pro in the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max.

The alert notification isn't new, either. With iOS/iPadOS 14 or above, your device will flash an orange indicator if an app is using the microphone or a green indicator if the camera is in use. Ultimately, the goal is to alert you if either sensor has been activated, especially by a malicious app or hacker trying to spy on you.

While the previous alert was software-based, and savvy hackers could theoretically bypass the protection and access your camera or microphone without prompting the alerts, "Secure Exclave" is hardware-based. This means that even a smart hacker would be hard-pressed to sneak past its security.

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Hitting the M4 iPad Pro in June, the feature was aptly described then by an app developer and security researcher via a post on Mastodon, as spotted by 9to5Mac.

"Fun fact about the M4 iPad Pro: it's the first device to support and use Apple's new Secure Indicator Light (SIL) mechanism," Gui Rambo wrote. "When using the microphone or camera, the corresponding indicator dot is effectively rendered in hardware (using the display), making it a lot less likely that any malware or user space app would be able to access those sensors without the user's knowledge."

Though the two names are similar, the Secure Exclave is different from the "Secure Enclave." The former is brand new with the M4 iPad Pro and iPhone 16. The latter has been around for more than 10 years and is a dedicated processor designed to encrypt sensitive information, such as your biometric data from Face ID and Touch ID.