Huge iPhone security hole
p2pnet news | security:- Hackers say they’ve found a gaping hole in security safeguards which are supposed to be covering Apple’s iPhone.
Working for Independent Security Evaluators, the team said they could, “take control of iPhones through a WiFi connection or by tricking users into going to a Web site that contains malicious code,” says the New York Times, going on:
“The hack, the first reported, allowed them to tap the wealth of personal information the phones contain.
“Although Apple built considerable security measures into its device, said Charles A. Miller, the principal security analyst for the firm, ‘Once you did manage to find a hole, you were in complete control’.”
There’s no evidence the hole has so far been exploited, or that users had been affected, says the story, going on:
Dr. Miller, a former employee of the National Security Agency who has a doctorate in computer science, demonstrated the hack to a reporter by using his iPhone’s Web browser to visit a Web site of his own design.
Once he was there, the site injected a bit of code into the iPhone that then took over the phone. The phone promptly followed instructions to transmit a set of files to the attacking computer that included recent text messages — including one that had been sent to the reporter’s cellphone moments before — as well as telephone contacts and e-mail addresses.
“We can get any file we want,” the New York Times has him saying he said. Potentially, he added, “the attack could be used to program the phone to make calls, running up large bills or even turning it into a portable bugging device.”
The story also has Steven M. Bellovin, a professor of computer science at Columbia University, saying he suspects phones based on the Windows mobile operating system would be similarly “attackable,” although, “he had not yet heard of any attacks”.
Also See:
New York Times – IPhone Flaw Lets Hackers Take Over, Security Firm Says, July 23, 2007
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July 23rd, 2007 at 9:04 am
yes, and undoubtedly this will occur much more often with web browser capable phones that will balk at the security end of them.