Early versions of the iPhone software in the pre-iOS era did not include any kind of application sandbox. This gave apps more power on the device than they should have and meant that exploits against the phone often gave attackers root access to the iPhone software. Apple addressed this with the addition of the Apple Sandbox for iOS, which is a fine-grained set of restrictions on what apps can do and what actions they can take on the user’s behalf. The sandbox is designed to prevent exploits against the software from blowing away all of the security restrictions by limiting the post-exploitation options.
Sandbox
Early versions of the iPhone software in the pre-iOS era did not include any kind of application sandbox. This gave apps more power on the device than they should have and meant that exploits against the phone often gave attackers root access to the iPhone software. Apple addressed this with the addition of the Apple Sandbox for iOS, which is a fine-grained set of restrictions on what apps can do and what actions they can take on the user’s behalf.
