It has surprised us since its introduction. Who can’t remember the address given by Apple’s Steve Jobs when he introduced the revolutionary iPhone? Who was not surprised by the device that was capable of surfing the web, taking photos, listening to music and, of course, receiving and making calls?
Nothing new, right?
Right around the time the iPhone was released, North American hackers started looking into what makes this work. The main reason was to unlock the phone so that it would not have to register with AT&T but with any carrier that supported the technology. But could there be more nefarious reasons to hack iPhone?
Skilled hackers can now take your phone to any carrier, but more importantly, they can create and enable custom ringtones (without having to pay to buy ringtones), enable custom wallpapers, and more.
In the process of hacking the iPhone, various data was obtained, such as the fact that the iPhone software runs as “root”. In the Unix world, this basically gives you full and complete access to the machine. It could bring down entire servers and even chains of servers if you have ROOT access to a Unix machine.
So how does this affect you, the average Apple iPhone user who doesn’t plan on hacking their phone? Well someone may want to hack your phone and now you have the plan to do it.
While Apple is working hard to try to prevent piracy by playing the game of cat and mouse, it will always be a game of cat and mouse. If you browse a questionable website that downloads software on your iPhone, you could end up in a ton of trouble.
In a July 23, 2007 New York Times Technology section article, a flaw was found in the iPhone that allowed hackers to take over the iPhone. Remember that most people store entire lives on their digital assistants (be it a smartphone, iPhone, or even a PDA). They keep names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses on them. Not to mention passwords, banking information (like bank account numbers), and even digital images taken by the built-in camera.
Now imagine if a hacker has access to all this data.
Security firm Independent Security Advisors found that through common flaws (and without even hacking the phone) they could gain unauthorized access to phone content over a WiFi connection or trick users into visiting websites that embed code malicious on the phone.
The hack allowed the company to obtain a large amount of personal information contained in the phone.
Dr. Miller, who was a former National Security Agency employee, also demonstrated the trick by visiting a website of his own design, inserting malicious code into the phone, and then having the phone transmit data to the attacking computer. He went on to say that the attack could be used to program the phone to make calls, which would increase the user’s phone bill, not to mention that the phone could be used to spy on the person by turning it into a portable listening device. Remember, it has a built-in camera.
How can you protect yourself? As with any device, common sense should prevail. Don’t open emails from people you don’t know; if you open them and there are attachments, avoid opening the attachments or visiting the websites in question.
Since Apple’s iPhone has automatic updates, always make sure your iPhone has the latest updates by visiting the manufacturer’s site.
If you are very concerned about the threats to your iPhone, you can also visit the website [http://www.exploitingphone.com/]which is run by independent security testers to stay on top of attacks and threats to your personal data on iPhone.
Even doing simple searches on Yahoo, Google or MSN with ‘iPhone hacking threats’ will give you a wealth of information.