Apple offering $1M bounty for hacking its private AI cloud
Apple is inviting security researchers to examine its Private Cloud Compute (PCC) system, a critical element of the company's more intensive Apple Intelligence requests. Along with this effort, the tech giant is also expanding its bug bounty program. As part of this expansion, it is offering rewards between $50,000 to a whopping $1 million for those who discover vulnerabilities in the PCC system.
Apple Intelligence: A blend of on-device and server-based operations
Apple's advanced AI features, dubbed Apple Intelligence, are designed to work on-device, without ever leaving the user's Mac, iPhone, or other Apple hardware. However, for more complicated requests, these features depend on PCC servers. They are uniquely built using Apple Silicon and a new operating system. This mix of on-device and server-based operations isn't unheard of in the tech industry but has raised questions about security in server-based operations.
Commitment to user privacy and security
Apple has always stressed on its dedication toward user privacy, a claim that could be compromised by poorly secured cloud servers for AI. To avoid that, the company has designed the PCC system in a manner that it can maintain its security and privacy promises. In fact, Apple is even allowing independent verification of these promises by security researchers.
Providing resources for independent verification
To help researchers with their work, Apple is offering a security guide explaining the technical details of the PCC. The company is also providing a "Virtual Research Environment" to conduct security analysis of PCC on Mac machines. Further, source code for "certain key components of PCC that help to implement its security and privacy requirements" will be released on GitHub.
Bug bounty program and upcoming AI features
Apple's bug bounty program will reward researchers for finding vulnerabilities in various categories. The company will also consider any security issue with a major impact on PCC for a reward. The move comes just ahead of the launch of the first Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.1, due next week. Some of these advanced features, including Genmoji and ChatGPT integration, were previewed in the recent iOS 18.2 developer beta release.
