Wednesday, November 9, 2011

iPhone apps vulnerability discovered, researcher faces 1 year ban

Some news from smartphone security arena. iPhone is the first that comes in mind when talking about smartphone and with iPhone comes iPhone apps.

Apple’s iPhone apps have always been considered the safe alternative to Android. Unlike the Android marketplace, Apple screens all its apps before posting them for use. One researcher, however, discovered a bug in their screening process that would potentially allow hackers access to your phone. And, what he gets in return is punishment from Apple!

Charlie Miller, a researcher at Accuvant and one of the world's best-known Apple hackers, said,

Until now, you could just blindly trust and download as many apps as you wanted and not worry about it, but until they fix this, you really should think twice about any apps you're downloading, because they could be malicious.

Miller said he told Apple about the issue and the company told him that a fix was impending. He says he exposed the bug so that Apple could fix the issue before a malicious hacker started stealing information from customer’s iPhones. What did he get in return for his help? Apple banned him from the iOS developer program for a year.

I think it's pretty rude. If you think about what I'm doing- I'm pointing out a flaw that would affect everybody and that the bad guys could use to install malware (malicious software). And they're not paying me, I'm just doing it to be nice.

If hackers found the flaw and exploited it, the results could be disastrous.

Read more here: http://electricego.crinz.com/634/iphone-bug-for-hackers