Last Saturday (January 28), I presented an updated talk on Apple’s iOS MDM system at ShmooCon 8. I had a great time, and really enjoyed all the questions and nice comments I received afterwards. I thought I’d mention a couple of the changes that iOS 5 provide.

First, the devices support some additional restrictions and controls. These controls should be available in most commercial MDM solutions, and can also be found in the iPhone Configuration Utility (IPCU). Among these new controls are the ability to:

  • Disable Siri
  • Selectively disable iCloud features: Backup, Document Sync, Photo Stream
  • Reject SSL sites with untrusted certificates
  • Prevent moving messages out of an email account into another
  • Prevent use of an email account from 3rd party applications

Additions to the MDM service as a whole include:

  • Ability to ask a device to “Check Out” when removed from MDM
  • Installing and removing applications (custom and App Store apps)
  • Listing managed applications
  • Configuration of some settings (Voice and Data Roaming)
  • Applying iTunes redemption codes to installation of apps (for Volume Purchase Plan)

I’ve updated my experimental MDM server to support most of these features. I’ve also added some better documentation for the server code, and scripts to help create the necessary server and CA certificates.

Slides from the presentation, as well as the code and the Black Hat white paper and slides, are all available at Github. Enjoy!

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