Business | Technology
Hackers could take a crack at iPhone
Apple's iPhone will be the new primary target for experienced hackers this year due to the complexity involved in cracking the security of the cellphone.
- By Naushad K. Cherrayil, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:33 August 2, 2007
- Image Credit: AP
- Since the release of the iPhone, hackers have raced to spot bugs in the device or get it to behave in ways its designers didn't intend.
Dubai: Apple's iPhone will be the new primary target for experienced hackers this year due to the complexity involved in cracking the security of the cellphone.
This is primarily due to the lack of the software development kit from Apple, said McAfee.
"The mobile threat field is already showing an unwelcome form of maturity - the shift from mere vandalism to sophisticated and increasingly socially engineered malware. The number of mobile malware variants targeted at smartphones and wireless PDA devices is expected to double by 2008," said Faisal Khan, senior security consultant, McAfee Middle East.
Currently more than 55 to 60 per cent of the market is ruled by Symbian OS-enabled phones, and till date nearly most of them if not all have had security issues, and have become fairly easy to crack.
Nearly half of the operators who have experienced mobile malware outbreaks have had one within the last three months and twice as many mobile operators have spent over $200,000 on mobile security in 2006 compared to 2005.
He says the attention that iPhone is getting with all the technology savvy applications is probably the biggest risk posed to it. The security considerations behind the iPhone will evolve around the following two main aspects - the code base or the OS of the iPhone and the applications running on the cellphone from Apple or various vendors on the iPhone.
Even if Apple maintains a secure operating system and secure applications for the iPhone, the real challenge arrives when consumers start installing third party applications to interact with the iPhone.
"To complicate things further, the iPhone will not only be prone to mobile attacks but also attacks which can be propagated through iTunes software, which sits mostly on a Windows or a Mac Machine. Hence someone can easily go around the iTunes and its vulnerabilities to compromise an iPhone," Khan said.
Less than 72 hours after the iPhone's introduction, researchers have reported at least one flaw that could allow an attacker some level of control over the device, while other hackers have uncovered passwords hiding in Apple software that could prove key in gaining root access, they said.
The most serious flaw, reported by Errata Security, a consulting and product testing company that offers expertise in cybersecurity to clients, resides in the iPhone's Safari browser.
"By effecting a buffer overflow in the application, an attacker can take control of the browser and run code on the device," Robert Graham, CEO of Errata said.
Errata also reported a bug that resides in the iPhone's Bluetooth features. Since the release of the iPhone, hackers have raced to spot bugs in the device or get it to behave in ways its designers didn't intend.
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