iPhone App Blog

There’s been a lot of talk going around about possible security flaws on the iPhone. That zombie botnet, browser dialing concerns, and other security issues have buzzed around the iPhone since its release. The main concern with iPhone’s security is that it is basically a computer that holds all the personal information of a cell phone without many of the security features of a computer.

The guys over at Independent Security Evaluators have thoroughly exploited this.

Independent Security Evaluators is basically a hacking company. Not a malicious hacking company by any means, but a hacking company. You hire them and they rip your software or hardware or new technology a new one by finding all the security flaws inherent in the system. They did this to the iPhone for fun.

Good thing, too, because they have informed Apple of the iPhone’s security issues that allowed them to pretty much break into and control iPhones that become compromised. They designed a toolchain embedded in a malicious website that would give an attacker access to SMS messages, contact lists, call histories, and voicemail data stored on the iPhone.

There are many points of attack. Links sent through e-mail or SMS messages may re-direct to the malicious website as could a misconfigured forum link. Perhaps the most deceptive way would be through an attacker controlled wireless access point. The iPhone learns access points by name so if an attacker copied the name and encryption code of an already trusted access point they could replace any page browsed with a malicious webpage.

Another exploit developed by ISE allows an attacker to actually control the iPhone. In their tests they made the iPhone “vibrate for a second.” Using this same hack it would be possible to make calls, get passwords, and even record calls turning the iPhone into a portable bugging device.

This is possible because the iPhone’s version of Safari recognizes the arbitrary code with administrative privileges. All of iPhone’s main programs have administrative privilege so once you have broken in you have access to everything.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to hide your iPhone in a drawer and not touch it until Apple issues a patch to fix it. Just use the same security steps you would on your laptop or other computer. Only visit sites you trust, only use wi-fi networks you trust, and don’t open links from e-mails or SMS messages.

For more info on this exploit check out this New York Times article.