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iPhone SMS Bug Released Today – Leaves all iPhones Vulnerable to Attack
July 30, 2009 by Brooke
Categories: iPhone news
23 Comments
6,481 views
According to Forbes, today two researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner plan on releasing a bug in the iPhone SMS during the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. The bug is said to allow a person to take over an iPhone via SMS.
“Using a flaw they’ve found in the iPhone’s handling of text messages, the researchers say they’ll demonstrate how to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone’s functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device’s camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a mass-gadget hijacking.”
If that doesn’t sound scary enough, the only way to prevent the attack is to turn your iPhone off.
“If you receive a text message on your iPhone any time after Thursday afternoon containing only a single square character, Charlie Miller would suggest you turn the device off. Quickly.”
The researchers say that they notified Apple about the bug a month ago however, Apple has not released a fix for it.
Do we know if this is actually true or not… No. Do we know if iPhones all over the world are going to be hacked today… No. If you receive an email with a single square character, should you turn off your iPhone… that is up to you!
You can see the full Article HERE.
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Isn’t that just great!
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Spooky, hopefully this will be fixed in 3.1. Also, I think you meant SMS and not email in the last paragraph.
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lol , i’m happy that i have an iPod Touch =D
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Fml
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I find this all a bit too incredible. Perhaps said researchers are eager for some attention or seeking publicity. Remember, don’t believe everything you read. The Y2K fear had rational people bunkering down for an apocalypse.
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Considering that these are the same researchers that found the bug in mobile safari back in fw 1.1.1 that allowed for the web based jailbreak exploit to take place, I’d say they are a credible source for this type of news.
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Brooke on July 30th, 2009 10:45 am:
I would agree.
Couldn’t you just put your device in airplane mode?
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will on July 30th, 2009 11:30 am:
yea you could put it in airplane mode but after you receive the text they would have control over your phone. Powering on is one thing they cant do remotely.
Sean on July 30th, 2009 11:37 am:
But once in airplane mode the device is removed from the service grid. Hence, no messing around if they’re not connected.
Frank on July 30th, 2009 3:06 pm:
If you put the phone in airplane mode, then your device is reduced to an iPod touch. You can’t make or recieve calls or send text. What’s the point of having an iPhone.
Turn off your phone quickly and then what?
How long before we dare turn it back turn in back on?
Would it not be simpler to just delete the message before opening it?
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This is all too funny… People going around paranoid someone will text hack their iphone.. Whatever… I think it’s crap.
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if you dont believe watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCyKcoDaofg
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Would an SMS filter with a whitelist not be better to use till they patch Apples major cockups?
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Owie on July 31st, 2009 8:13 am:
Well, having a whitelist should be the carriers’ job… I think the carriers should really look into this while Apple is fixing it… They should get in contact with the “researchers” and get the details about the viral message like size, md5 etc.
i hope this comes out to be true and apple learns his lesson. updates are not for stopping jailbreaking or itunes from working with other devices. updates are for critical situations like this. but i’m sure apple will find another lie (like their lie about mms not working on 2g iphones due to hardware issues).
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Looks like we could be patched up tomorrow from what’s been posted on Twitter, patch will be issued via iTunes. True or not who knows
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Just checked iTunes and the new update to fix is available now.
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iPhones are just the best, love the touch screen technology.
Thanks for the informative post.
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