iMessage and Attached Files

Question

iMessage and Attached Files

Hello,

i have a security question. I recent received an email from an outlook.com.au account. I noticed the message preview in iMessage said “1 File Attached”. I know I did not open the message, though I can only say I only seemingly didn’t open the file (seemingly). However, I tapped and held the message to get a preview of it and noticed a .docx file titled “Bella Bumz” was sent?

Long story short, my question is: Do previewed texts automatically download or open the file as well?

I feel stupid for even previewing the message, but thought I was safe until I thought of the possibility that the word document could’ve been read by the GPU in background, thus running some malicious code. Similar but not exact to the Folina exploit.

Pictures:

[Image Edited by Moderator to Remove Personal Information]

iPhone XR, iOS 15

Posted on Oct 21, 2022 2:44 PM

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Answer 1

Axel Foley

Level 10

150,978 points

Oct 21, 2022 2:50 PM in response to Moderate_And_Maintain

The attachment is a MS Word file. The file extension *.docx confirms that. Had it been opened then you would have seen it open the MS Word app or an app that views MS Word files. That did not happen so you are good to go and you are safe. There is nothing risky about previewing the message. The steps that you took were of caution and perfectly fine.

The other thing to note is that even if you would have fully opened the file in the MS Word app, you still would not have been hacked. This is because there are no executables in a MS Word doc.

Axel F.

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Answer 2

Axel Foley

Level 10

150,978 points

Oct 21, 2022 7:34 PM in response to Moderate_And_Maintain

Follina was a MS Office vulnerability under MS Windows. Microsoft has since patched that vulnerability. As you know, you are running iOS and that vulnerability does not exist on it.

Axel F.

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Answer 3

Oct 21, 2022 3:42 PM in response to Axel Foley

Thank you for the reply, that was a big help. Are you sure there are no executables via MS Word? Do you mean just for iOS?

Also, then how does Follina* (self-correction( exploit? Just the web browser of target?

Thanks,

M&M

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