Overview
- OneKey founder Yishi Wang warned on Sunday, November 1, 2026 that iPhone 11 and earlier models contain permanent BootROM vulnerabilities that Apple cannot fix with standard iOS updates.
- Two public exploits underlie the risk: checkm8, disclosed in 2019, affects iPhone 4S through X, and usbliter8, disclosed in June 2026, extends the problem to A12/A13 chips used in the XS, XR, 11 series and second‑generation SE.
- An attacker with brief physical access can put an affected phone into DFU mode, attach specialized USB tools, and run code before iOS boots, a process that can extract or expose encrypted wallet material and may leave no visible trace.
- Device passcodes and Apple’s Secure Enclave raise barriers to exploitation but weak numeric passcodes, outdated wallet apps, or weak wallet passwords make compromise more likely and Wang urged users to abandon any potentially exposed seed phrases.
- The warning matters because many people use old iPhones as homemade cold storage, so users should move assets to newly generated wallets on trusted devices and consider iPhone 12 or newer models or dedicated hardware wallets for safer seed storage.