Lax security screening at Apple's App Store and a design flaw are putting iPhone users at risk of downloading malicious applications that could steal data and spy on them, a Swiss researcher has warned.
Apple's iPhone app review process is inadequate to stop malicious apps from getting distributed to millions of users, according to Nicolas Seriot, a software engineer and scientific collaborator at the Swiss University of Applied Sciences (HEIG-VD).
Once they are downloaded, iPhone apps have unfettered access to a wide range of privacy-invasive information about the user's device, location, activities, interests and friends, he said in an interview on Tuesday.
In a talk scheduled for Wednesday at the Black Hat DC security conference, Seriot will explain how an innocent-looking app could be designed to harvest personal data and send it to a remote server without the user knowing it.
For more on this story, see Researcher warns of risks from rogue iPhone apps on CNET News.
Talkback
"SpyPhone can be used to track the user's whereabouts and activities. It offers access to the keyboard cache, which contains all the words ever typed on the keyboard, except for words entered in password fields, effectively acting as a keylogger, he said. It accesses photos, which can be tagged with the date and location via the GPS coordinates. And a log showing the device's Wi-Fi connections also is accessible."
I mean if they can encrypt some of the information then why not it all? maybe this is where government legislation's come into play on the do's & dont's on the manufacturing fronts.
Or maybe it's just another avenue for the given company's to market every individual person as and when they see fit, making us nothing more than unofficial slaves.
The full read over on cnet states that the chap also informed apple over a year ago, for which they issued a token update which consequently did bugger all.
Whats the point of these devices holding information category's such as address books, notes, or reminders if using them undermines you, no wonder the paper company's are still in business.