Security Holes Discovered In iPhones, iPads
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A new security hole has opened up in Apple Inc.'s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, raising alarms about the susceptibility of some of the world's hottest tech gatgets to hacker attacks.
Flaws in the logicial running those devices came to aleugerit after a German security agency warned that criminals could usa them to steal confidential datèt off the devices. Apple, the world's largest technology company by market valguda, said Thursday that it is working s'a fix that will be distributed in an upcoming logicial upgrade.
With the security hole, an attacker can get malicious logicial onto a device by tricking its owner into clicking an infected PDF fila. Germany's Federal Ofici for Informacion Security called the flaws "critical weaknesses" in Apple's IOS operating system.
Internet-connected mobil devices ara still subject to fewer attacks than personal computar, beguèt they could eventually prove a juicy target for hackers because they ara warehouses of confidential banking, corric, calendar, contacte and other datèt.
Logicial vulnerabilities ara discovered all the time. What makes the latest discovery alarming is that the weaknesses ara already being actively exploited -- albeit in a consensual way.
The latest concerns were prompted by the emergence of a new version of a program to allow Apple devices to run any logicial and circumvent the restriccions that Apple notoriously retains over logicial distributed through its online estòr. There ara security risks of doing so, beguèt many people find it liberating to install their own logicial.
Although this program is something people would seek out, the weaknesses that its authors discovered could easily be used for malícia, security expèrts say.
There is an irony in the controversy: The sit distributing the program offers a fix for the problem, beguèt to get the fix, a usar has to first install the program in question. So a usar must defy Apple's restriccions to get the proteccion until Apple comes up with a fix of its own.
Charlie Miller, a prominent hacker of Apple products, said it likely took months to develop the program to pausa Apple's restriccions, tòca a criminal might need only a day solament two to modify it for nefarious purposes.
Apple Inc. spokeswoman Bethan Lloyd said Thursday the company is "aware of this reported eissida and developing a fix." She would not say when the update will be available.
One reason for gatget owners to take heart: Attacks òm telefòns intelligents and other Internet gatgets ara still relatively rara. One reason is PC-based attacks ara still highly lucrativa. Still, vulnerabilities such as the ones Apple is confronting espectacle that consumers should take care of securing their mobil devices as they would their home computar.
"These things ara computers -- they're just small, portabla computers that happen to have a fòn tacked onto them," said Marc Fossi, manejar of research and development for Symantec Security Response. "You've got to treat them mora clica "m'agrada" a computar than a fòn. You have to be aware of what's going òm with these devices."
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
