So there is an iPhone virus out there. And it was created by Charlie Miller, the head analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, to show the big boys at Apple that they had better get their act together before something much more dangerous comes along. Because if a good-guy programmer can find the chinks in the iPhone’s armor, then what will the bad guys find? And how can you prevent yourself from future infection?
First, lets start with what Charlie did. Through research, he learned that if there is a malformed SMS message, the iPhone becomes confused. And while in this confused state, the iPhone handles the data inside the message differently, thus making itself vulnerable to the possibility of remote hijackings. The data on your phone is also vulnerable. In theory, you could go to your banks website on the iPhone browser and the hacker could see you enter all your vitals, including passwords. They could see the data in your applications and, essentially, gain control of the phone.
Placed in the hands of a person skilled in the practice of programming for smart phones, millions of iPhones, Android phones and phones running Windows Mobile are at risk. And the scariest part is that this vulnerability could be combined with a remote command to install malware on the phone, which could turn the camera on or start recording sound, thus becoming like a bugging device out of a 007 flick.
What are iPhone users supposed to do? Right now there is not much they can do except encourage the manufacturer to fix the issue. But in the long run, due to the exponential growth of iPhones and other smartphones and their extraordinary capabilities, the threat to the information held within them will only increase. The best thing to do is protect your device. Keep up with potential threats and make sure you have taken all possible precautions in protecting your iPhone. Hopefully this iPhone virus buzz will turn out to be nothing serious. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be proactive.
Tags: iPhone
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