iPhone Gets Pwned

And Fast.

Engadget is reporting that the iPhone managed to get completely hacked in 20 seconds. That’s right 20 seconds. Many people feel that they are safe from hackers being under the Apple umbrella and I don’t blame them. Apple for years has been marketing their products as being safe, virus free, etc. But it seems that clearly Apple isn’t invincible.

At this week’s Pwn2Own competition, which invites hackers to take aim at popular consumer products and software, two security researchers managed to take down the mighty iPhone by simply making it visit a site. So there wasn’t anything really fancy about the hack, but the results were all to frightening. Within 20s Vincenzo Iozzo and Ralf-Philipp Weinmann managed to take the complete SMS database of messages (both sent and received) and delete them from an iPhone. The hack could also allow the researchers to potentially access the iPhones complete contact list, e-mail, pictures and iTunes music.

All in all this was a very scary hack, but don’t be too afraid. Because this exploit was shown at the Pwn2Own competition the hack has been sent to Apple for further analyst, so there will certainly be a patch for this kind of hack. Let’s just hope that no one picks up on it before Apple gets a chance to patch the iPhone. Also, I think it might just be time for Apple to start teaching people how to be safe online. Its just a thought.