A Relay a Day Keeps the AirTag Away: Practical Relay Attacks on Apple's AirTags
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arXiv
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| Hauptverfasser: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866908961300545536 |
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| author | Gegenhuber, Gabriel K. Liadveikin, Leonid Holzbauer, Florian Strobl, Sebastian |
| author_facet | Gegenhuber, Gabriel K. Liadveikin, Leonid Holzbauer, Florian Strobl, Sebastian |
| contents | Apple AirTags use Apple's Find My network: when nearby iDevices detect a lost tag, they anonymously forward an encrypted location report to Apple, which the tag's owner can then fetch to locate the item. That encryption protects privacy -- neither the finder nor Apple learns the owner's identity -- but it also prevents Apple from validating the correctness of received reports.
We show that this design weakness can be exploited: using a relay attack, we can inject manipulated location reports so the Find My service reports a false position for a lost AirTag. The same technique can be used to deny recovery of a targeted tag (a focused DoS), since the owner is misled about its whereabouts. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_10138 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Relay a Day Keeps the AirTag Away: Practical Relay Attacks on Apple's AirTags Gegenhuber, Gabriel K. Liadveikin, Leonid Holzbauer, Florian Strobl, Sebastian Cryptography and Security Computers and Society Apple AirTags use Apple's Find My network: when nearby iDevices detect a lost tag, they anonymously forward an encrypted location report to Apple, which the tag's owner can then fetch to locate the item. That encryption protects privacy -- neither the finder nor Apple learns the owner's identity -- but it also prevents Apple from validating the correctness of received reports. We show that this design weakness can be exploited: using a relay attack, we can inject manipulated location reports so the Find My service reports a false position for a lost AirTag. The same technique can be used to deny recovery of a targeted tag (a focused DoS), since the owner is misled about its whereabouts. |
| title | A Relay a Day Keeps the AirTag Away: Practical Relay Attacks on Apple's AirTags |
| topic | Cryptography and Security Computers and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10138 |