Site Network: Beskerming.com | Skiifwrald.com | Jongsma & Jongsma

Innovation in Information Security

Coverage of important Information Security and Information Technology news and events from the research team at S?nnet Beskerming.

Username: | Password: Contact us to request an account

iPhone Researchers Gain a Shell

A team of researchers (#iphone @ irc.osx86.hu) dedicated to finding means to fully control and interact with the new Apple iPhone claim to have successfully gained an interactive shell on the device. In order to achieve this feat physical access to the phone is required, as it relies on some minor electronics to be created and connected to the phone's serial port.

The breakthrough also relies upon specialised software that has been developed as part of the testing and research process, but which had only given limited control over the bootloader up to this point (limited to powering off).

Before this latest development, the researchers had been able to take some control over what processes were allowed to run on the iPhone, arbitrarily open any application that was already in place on the device, have the capacity to add files to the iPhone at will, and run any file at will.

With the current pace of developments, a general approach to taking full control of the iPhone should emerge within another week (it has only been a week since the phone was first released), without the need for hardware modification or addition.

Once the researchers understand and gain complete control over the commands that manage the transmitter in the iPhone, it opens up the opportunity for self-spreading code that targets the iPhone.

7 July 2007

Social bookmark this page at eKstreme.
Alternatively, Bookmark or Share via AddThis

Do you like how we cover Information Security news? How about checking out our company services, delivered the same way our news is.

Let our Free OS X Screen Saver deliver the latest security alerts and commentary to your desktop when you're not at your system.

Comments will soon be available for registered users.