The big news in the Apple-sphere recently was the released of iOS 4, which *shock&awe* has folders and multi-tasking – w00t.

You can of course jailbreak it with the newly updated PwnageTool 4.01.

On Monday, Apple released firmware 4.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch devices. This of course was a major upgrade.

As advised, you shouldn’t have upgraded your devices if you have previously relied on our tools for hacktivation and/or a carrier unlock.

With that said, today we are releasing PwnageTool 4.01

PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE POST CAREFULLY, THERE ARE KNOWN UPGRADE TRAPS AND DIFFERENT UPGRADE SCENARIOS THAT NEED TO BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD AND CONSIDERED BEFORE USING THESE TOOLS.

Each supported device has few different scenarios that users need to consider when performing the upgrades, you need to check below and perform the upgrade in the particular way that matches your current device state.

NB: With PwnageTool 4.01 certain devices are not supported this is because they are not supported in iOS 4.0 or they are not supported by our software. We’re working on ways to get past these restrictions.

• iPhone 2G – not supported
• iPod Touch – not supported
• iPod Touch 3G – not supported

Check out the full post for all the details and the download links.

Source: iphone-dev

Now it wasn’t long ago when the first malicious iPhone worm appeared in the wild and well generally since the boom of the device people have looking at the security measures.

Huge sales are made to corporates touting the security, privacy and encryption features of the iPhone OS. The latest discovery is that using a PIN on your iPhone 3GS really doesn’t protect you from anything as long as the person has physical access to your phone.

But then the same thing goes for desktop/laptop computers too, if someone has physical access you’re done for.

Using a four-digit PIN to lock your iPhone doesn’t really protect your data, security and IT blogger Bernd Marienfeldt has discovered. In an article describing the iPhone’s business security framework, Marienfeldt has found a “data protection vulnerability” in Apple’s iPhone 3GS.

Marienfeldt, working with security expert Jim Herbeck, has been able to reproduce the vulnerability on at least three non jail-broken iPhone 3GS handsets with different iPhone OS versions installed (including the latest). All tested iPhones were protected with a four-digit PIN.

In Marienfeldt’s own words:

“The unprotected iPhone 3GS mounting is “limited” to the DCIM folder under Ubuntu < 10.04 LTS, Apple Macintosh, Windows 2000 SP2 and Windows 7. The way Ubuntu Lucid Lynx handles the iPhone 3GS [6,7,8] allows to get more content (please do make sure that the native Ubuntu system is fully up to date, e.g. "apt-get update, "apt-get upgrade" - any virtualization based solution will not work as described). I used the Alternate CD with x86 and AMD64 on different hardware."

I guess with phones/embedded system we expected the user data to a little more secure and well we guessed wrongly. With a total of 33.75 million iPhones sold up to Q4 2009 that’s a staggering amount of vulnerable devices out there.

Another issue is Apple haven’t as yet worked out what the problem is, they’ve given some vague mentions of “race conditions” or “a pairing issues” but haven’t been able to reproduce it so far.

Other people have had varying success in exploiting the flaw, it seems to depend on the actual iPhone itself rather than anything else.

Basically, plugging an up-to-date, non jail-broken, PIN-protected iPhone (powered off) into a computer running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx will allow the people to see practically all of the user’s data–including music, photos, videos, podcasts, voice recordings, Google safe browsing databases, and game contents. The “hacker” has read/write access to the iPhone, and the hack leaves no trace.

According to Marienfeldt, “The allowed write access could also lead into triggering a buffer overflow.” A buffer overflow could allow full write access, and full write access could potentially lead to the attacker being able to make phone calls (as far as we know, the attacker can access all of your data but they can’t make any phone calls…how reassuring).

Marienfeldt points out that this is especially an issue for corporate/business users, who “rely on the expectation that their iPhone 3GS’s whole content is protected by encryption with a passcode based authentication in place to unlock it.”

Apple has been notified of the flaw, but has yet to correct it (or give a timeline for the correction).

I hope Apple can address this phone and give a proper breakdown and explanation of why this happens, there must be some technical explanation for it and why it occurs in their so called ‘secure’ implementation.

You can read the original blog post here:

iPhone business security framework

Source: Network World

It’s a little less than 2 weeks since the Jailbroken iPhone Users Got Rickrolled and as I thought a similar worm has been seen in the wild – but this time with malicious intent.

As the rickrolling incident showed, even the more savvy users that jailbreak their phones neglect to change the default SSH password meaning they can easily be rooted…and well this new worm is doing just that.

The user as usual is the weak link here, it’s not a true exploit – just an unchanged default password.

A Dutch internet service provider has identified a worm that installs a backdoor on jailbroken iPhones and makes them part of a botnet.

The worm, according to XS4ALL, targets jailbroken iPhones whose owners have carelessly failed to change the default password. In addition to connecting to a Lithuanian master command channel, it also changes the root password for the device, making it harder for owners trying to regain control. Infected iPhones are also tagged with a unique ID number.

“A number of customers with jailbroken phones have been found running unknown software on their phones which is trying to compromise other iPhone users at other telecommunications providers,” the XS4ALL advisory stated. “XS4ALL strongly advises caution against jailbreaking if you are not fully aware of the potential risks to your privacy and security.”

It’s quite smart, after installing itself it’ll change the root password (from my point of view to stop it getting reinfected and b0rked) and also to make it harder for the phone user to take back control.

I think it’s the first time I’ve seen a mobile device be infected and hooked up to a botnet, I thought it might happen with consoles before..but now with mobile 3G/3.5G Internet and powerful CPUs in mobile phones the next big thing might be botnets running on iPhones, Android and Symbian devices.

The worm has the ability to pillage SMS databases, and an analysis by Security.nl (English translation here) has identified a script that looks for mobile transaction authentication numbers used by some banks to perform two-factor authentication with SMS-based systems. (Sophos also has analysis here.)

The worm tries to propagate by scanning a variety of IP ranges, including those used by carriers T-Mobile, UPC in the Netherlands, and Optus in Australia. The worm is especially active when it has access to wi-fi networks. One tip-off that a device has been infected is that battery life is extremely short when connected to 802.11 networks because the worm generates so many connections. The worm is not widespread, F-Secure said Sunday.

The attacks come two weeks after a separate piece of self-replicating code caused iPhones mostly located in Australia to display images of Rick Astley, the schmaltzy 1980s pop singer. The most recent outbreak appears to be the first instance of malicious iPhone malware spreading in the wild.

So do your friends a favour and tell anyone with a jailbroken iPhone to change the default SSH password to something else! Just doing that will save them from the current crop of threats.

I wonder what else will come of this, will it become a widespread infection of jailbroken iPhone users? Will it reach every continent?

Over here in asia iPhones are fairly popular, but not hugely so like in the US. I’d say if there’s anywhere ripe for some iPhone mayhem it would be America.

Source: The Register

The ‘big’ news this week was the first self-replicating worm hit the iPhone, it only seemed to be spreading in Australia though and only worked under a specific set of circumstances.

It only effects iPhone users that have jailbroken their phone and have the SSH software installed with a default password of alpine.

Thankfully it’s not particularly malicious unless you are allergic to Rick Astley.

iPhone owners in Australia awoke this weekend to find their devices targeted by self-replicating attacks that display an image of 1980s heart throb Rick Astley that’s not easily removed. The attacks, which researchers say are the world’s first iPhone worm in the wild, target jailbroken iPhones that have SSH software installed and keep Apple’s default root password of “alpine.” In addition to showing a well-coiffed picture of Astley, the new wallpaper displays the message “ikee is never going to give you up,” a play on Astley’s saccharine addled 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Tricking victims in to inadvertently playing the song has become a popular prank known as Rickrolling. A review of some of the source code, shows that the malware, once installed, searches the mobile phone network for other vulnerable iPhones and when it finds one, copies itself to them using the the default password and SSH, a Unix application also known as secure shell. People posting to this thread on Australian discussion forum Whirlpool first reported being hit on Friday.

A new twist on the rickrolling phenomena at least, and of course the good thing for the rest of the World is that the infection seems to be fairly localized.

To me it’s more of a PoC (Proof of Concept) than anything else, but it is a neat piece of programming and shows what some malicious minds could put together if they wanted to target iPhones.

From the authors perspective he just wants to let people know that if they are gonna mess with their iPhone they better secure their shit.

The attack is a wakeup call for anyone who takes the time to jailbreak an iPhone. While the hack greatly expands the capabilities of the Apple smartphone, it can also make it more vulnerable. Programs such as OpenSSH, which can only be installed after iPhones have undergone the procedure, can be extremely useful, but if owners haven’t bothered to change their root password, the programs also represent a gaping hole waiting to be exploited.

Indeed, a hacker going by the moniker ikee and claiming to be responsible for the worm said here that he wrote the program to bring awareness to the widely followed practice of failing to change the iPhone’s password.

“I was quite amazed by the number of people who didn’t RTFM and change their default passwords,” the unidentified worm writer said. “I admit I probably pissed of [sic] a few people, but it was all in good fun (well ok for me anyway).”

Ikee said the worm disables the SSH daemon so it can’t be targeted further.

And in the true hacker spirit, the worm disables SSH so it can’t get infected again or hacked by anyone else.

It doesn’t takes skills to own the box, it takes skills to stay on the box :)

Source: The Register

With the latest version of the Apple iPhone OS being released last night or this morning (depending where in the World you are) I guess most of the iPhone users amongst you would have already installed the software.

Everyone I know using an iPhone has already done it without a hitch, it’s been long awaited and it’s definitely an improved over version 2.0.

The new OS also includes patches for 46 previously unpatched security vulnerabilities in the version 2.0 OS.

Apple releases iPhone OS 3.0 to much fanfare. In addition to new features, the updated iPhone operating system brings several patches that address serious security issues in the mobile device.

Apple quietly plugged nearly four dozen security holes when it pushed out an upgrade to iPhone OS 3.0 on June 17.

With iPhone OS 3.0, users are getting fixes for several critical flaws, a number of which could be exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code. The WebKit and CoreGraphics components were the most vulnerable with 21 and eight vulnerabilities, respectively.

There are several serious flaws being fixed in this update, so even if you don’t need the features please update for the security.

Let anyone else you know using the iPhone to update too.

Apple’s advisory on the issues can be found here.

The Apple iPhone OS 3.0 contains more than 100 new features, some of which were aimed squarely at enterprises. In March, Apple gave about 50,000 individuals who paid to be part of the company’s developer program access to both the updated SDK (software development kit) and the beta version of the operating system as part of an effort to bring more secure business functionality to the iPhone.

The popularity of the iPhone and other smartphones has brought about an increased interest in properly securing and managing the devices. Along those lines, the Center for Internet Security just released a benchmark with advice on using the iPhone securely.

“Phones are small and relatively cheap, and fashionable, so many companies still don’t realize—or don’t want to acknowledge—that they can be as serious in terms of breach effects as a laptop or desktop PC,” Gartner analyst John Girard said.

I would take a wild guess though with 100 new features introduced that Apple has also introduced some security vulnerabilities.

I’d give it a week or so before some issues start to pop up with the new OS.

Companies do need to look at the security of mobile devices seriously, that’s partially why BlackBerry is so popular as it’s easy to setup secure communications and lock down the device.

Source: eWeek

Once again Apple iPhone has been unlocked by a determined youngster, the same who was amongst the first to unlock it last year winning himself a rather nice car and a few 8gb iPhones.

It just shows nothing is infallible, all he needed to find was a writable memory address and he was pretty much done (he used a much higher range of registers than previously).

A teen hacker known for his deftness with iPhones has figured out how to unlock models running the latest firmware versions by cracking a protection that has frustrated hackers for weeks.

The breakthrough by George Hotz, aka Geohot, means people who have bought a recent iPhone will once again be able to use it on the phone network of their choice. Apple makes as much as $400 for every handset that’s activated on an approved network, so its developers have worked hard to prevent the so-called unlocking of iPhones.

A very smart young man indeed, just showing 1 person can indeed defeat the security of a huge multi-national billion dollar company.

And he’s done it twice.

The latest salvo was fired late last week, following a 24-hour hacking spree by Geohot that was broken up by only three hours of sleep. It turns out the latest firmware contained modifications to the device’s memory registers to prevent unlocking. Geohot worked around those changes by finding another, much higher register that was vulnerable.

“I guess Apple thought big numbers were harder to guess,” he wrote.

He then found a way to install his custom-built code by exploiting a flaw that allowed him to erase a range of memory addresses where security software is stored.

An amazing 27% of iPhones are running on unauthorized networks which means they are cracked. Of course Apple will soon come out with a new firmware update that negates this problem….but then the game will just start all over again.

And no one doubt Geohot or someone like him will break it again.

If you want to know how to do it check out step-by-step instructions here from iClarified here.

Source: The Register