IPad Pro M4 Has a Hidden Security Feature
Apple is beefing up protection against apps that try to use your iPad’s camera or microphone without permission. Just like your Mac has an LED next to the webcam that lights up whenever the camera is in use, your iPad Pro M4 will now show an indicator light whenever apps are using the microphone and webcam. This feature was discovered by Guilherme Rambo , an application developer and security researcher from Brazil.
Rambo says the new feature is called Security Light and is available on the iPad Pro M4. There are no additional physical LEDs for this feature, but instead a few pixels on the display light up to alert you that apps are using your camera or microphone. Rambo says this is built right into the hardware, making it much harder for malicious software to hack into your M4 iPad Pro’s camera or microphone without you knowing.
It’s worth noting that this feature comes in addition to the software alerts that iOS issues whenever an app uses your device’s microphone or camera. Currently, your iPhone and iPad display a green dot in the top right corner of the screen if the camera is in use and an orange dot if the microphone is being accessed, but these notifications require signals from the OS to trigger. Having an additional layer of security with a more automatic hardware-linked security light is a welcome step, as it will alert you to unauthorized access even if malware finds a way to hide the software’s green or orange dots.
As with many great features of Apple products, it’s a bit of a shame that this feature is limited to the top-end iPad Pro. It’s likely that it will rely on the M4 chip , but I hope other future iPads and iPhones get this useful feature as they release.