“A security flaw in Apple’s iOS 6.1 lets anyone bypass your iPhone password lock and access your phone app, view or modify contacts, check your voicemail, and look through your photos (by attempting to add a photo to a contact),” Aaron Souppouris reports for The Verge.
“The method, as detailed by YouTube user videosdebarraquito, involves making (and immediately canceling) an emergency call and holding down the power button twice,” Souppouris reports. “We followed the steps and managed to access the phone app on two UK iPhone 5 [units] running iOS 6.1.”
Read more, and see the video, in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
If you ask me, this looks like a law enforcement to back door into contacts to check out drug dealers. It just seems that simple, and designed to be there.
Now the steps are published, they will have to change them… Not a bug I think
1
Ah, the ‘ol security through obscurity myth. Make something unpublished and call it secure.
I doubt it. This is a security risk.
By the time you get that sequence right you will have aged significantly. Someone doesn’t have a job apparently to spend so much time to get by the lock screen with these complicated steps.
Brilliant, a flaw that nobody would find by accident, is now common knowledge all over the fucking Internet. Way ta go, guys, genius move.
(Rolls eyes).
I think you meant: It was not very smart to make this common knowledge across the internet. These people are not very thoughtful and it hurts us all.
+1
This bypass doesn’t work if you have Simple Passcode off.
The bypass doesn’t work if you have Simple Password off.
If your password is off, why would you need to bypass it?
Simple password is a 4-digit numeric PIN. You can turn that off, and use an alphanumeric ‘password’ or ‘passphrase’ that isn’t limited to 4 digits. Apparently, this trick only works with Simple Password, though I’d point that is how the vast majority of people lock their iPhones.
Thanks for clearing that up. I don’t even use the 4 digit code and was not aware of the option for alphanumeric passwords.
One more time,
LOL, this isn’t good.
Patch is imminent.
Some of the inevitable try-outs will go through to Emergency switchboards. Using their time is not funny at all. An irresponsible reveal.
Thoughtful post. I agree totally.
+1
I fixed it my own damn self. Do NOT let anyone touch your phone, jackasses.
Jesus, that was easy. NEXT!
I agree. I don’t bother with a pass code as I don’t let anyone touch my phone. There is no need.
… and keep it right next to you to avoid robbery, and you would have an uncrackable device.
Anyone told Tim about this? Does it even matter if he knows. Follow up question as an example of why we will see more blunders like this: will Maps ever get fixed? Answer – not if they keep ignoring all those thousands of notices of errors provided by the faithful users of the app. Why ask if you aren’t going to do anything with the answer? Stupid is as stupid does. The company is having a real struggle in fixing stupid.
So is MDN.
Resident anonymous coward ppeterson (and who knows what other aliases): Apple occasionally needs a good kick in the ass. The mess that WAS Maps is a great example. So Apple fired the very naughty person who was in charge of it and has hired a dedicated team, including map experts, to revise it. It has been updated, the maps on the server have been improved and replaced. Blahblahblah. You can relax about that subject. Please find another about which to complain.
You are kidding right? Maps is still hopeless in many ways and I simply don’t trust it for ANYTHING. Way too many inaccurate or just plain wrong results. Google maps looks better to me, is reliable and above all, much more accurate. Every so often I try it again to see if its improved, but each time come away disappointed.
Clearly, u are exaggerating. Maps has worked with zero inaccuracies or problems. There are some limitations on some areas that don’t affect me but I applaud Maps and prefer this over Google. No question.
By now, everytime I attemped to Maps it hasn’t let me down. Sao Paulo and Southeast Florida used. It even compared favorably to GoogleMaps sometimes. GoogleMaps is stablished and iOS Maps is coming and doing fine. No way Apple could be hostage of competition on that. For a full GMaps move to Android, if you will. Or use both on iOS.
For those of us who have jailbroken, this is fixable now.
For those who haven’t and don’t want to jailbreak, I’m sure a fix will be coming soon from Apple.
Don’t try this out on your own device. You run the risk of calling emergency services, and that would be bad.
Also, be aware of this risk. If someone has stolen your iPhone, you may want to put a higher priority on remote wipe depending upon your circumstances. There’s a downside to remote wipe in that it disables Find My iPhone, which may or may not be a greater priority.
I suppose if you want to try it out, use 211 in the US and 911 in the UK. You invariably won’t reach the appropriate authorities. Correct me if I am wrong, but each region has a different emergency call back number.
How about this, try 555 that might even work.
Are those 2 jailbroken iPhones? My iPhone 4S has no such issue.
One more tally against Apple. Antennagate. Passcodegate.