“Apple iPhones can be taken over with ‘alarming’ ease using a custom-built charger, security researchers warn,” BBC News reports.
“Using the bogus charger, a team from Georgia Institute of Technology managed to infect a phone with a virus in less than a minute,” The Beeb reports. “Any device using Apple’s iOS operating system would be as vulnerable to infection, claim the trio. More details of their work will be given at the upcoming Black Hat USA hacker conference.”
The Beeb reports, “The team created their malicious charger using a tiny bare-bones computer called a BeagleBoard that costs about £30 ($45). ‘This hardware was selected to demonstrate the ease with which innocent-looking, malicious USB chargers can be constructed,’ wrote the researchers in their conference summary… The presentation will also make recommendations about how Apple could close the vulnerability uncovered by the team.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Interesting, but at 45-bucks a pop, and requiring the attacker to convince targets to use them, it’s hardly cost-effective for a widespread attack. If you hook just about anything up to a computer, whether it’s shaped like a wall charger or not, there likely will be the potential for security issues.
As always, Apple will correct whatever conduit this thing is using if it’s deemed necessary, which is ostensibly why these hacker conventions exist.
If this is the type of tortured, convoluted stuff that hackers are forced to come up with in order to get into an Apple device (having to shape a PC like something else and get users to plug their devices into them) iOS’ security will remain the gold standard for many years to come.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Boris K” for the heads up.]
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