Apple is working on fixing a SMS vulnerability in the iPhone that allows hackers to gain control of the device remotely, according to a security researcher Charlie Miller. The vulnerability lies in the way iPhone receives and sends text messages.
According to IDG news service, Charlie Miller said in a presentation at the SyScan conference in Singapore that the attackers could exploit this SMS flaw for ‘malicious purposes’, such as, tracking the phone’s location via GPS or by listening on the conversations.
He declined to provide further details citing an agreement with Apple. However, Miller plans to give the details at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas at the end of this month.
Despite the SMS flaw, the iPhone OS is more secure than the Mac OS X operating system because iPhone doesn’t support Adobe Flash and Java apps, Miller said. The code signing requirements and individual application sandboxes provide the secure environment, he added.
