Security Firm says iPhone's Safari flaw lets hackers take control

Within two weeks of part time work, researchers at Independent security Evaluators are claiming to have successfully discovered a flaw in iPhone's Safari browser that allows them to take control of the device with the help of a set of tools developed to work with iPhone's architecture (which also includes some tools from the #iphone-dev community). They have also  developed a proof-of-concept of the iPhone hack capable of delivering files from the user's iPhone to a remote attacker.

Only last week we had SPI Labs reporting that the click-to-call feature available in iPhone's Safari browser could be exploited to trick you into making phone calls to expensive "900" or overseas numbers without your knowledge. The iPhone hack in this case too is due to a vulnerability in iPhone's Safari browser. The iPhone hack works as mentioned below:

"The exploit is delivered via a malicious web page opened in the Safari browser on the iPhone. There are several delivery vectors that an attacker might utilize to get a victim to open such a web page. For example:

1. An attacker controlled wireless access point: Because the iPhone learns access points by name (SSID), if a user ever gets near an attacker-controlled access point with the same name (and encryption type) as an access point previously trusted by the user, the iPhone will automatically use the malicious access point. This allows the attacker to add the exploit to any web page browsed by the user by replacing the requested page with a page containing the exploit.
2. A mis-configured forum website: If a web forum's software is not configured to prevent users from including potentially dangerous data in their posts, an attacker could cause the exploit to run in any iPhone browser that viewed the thread. (This would require some slight changes in our proof of concept exploit, however.)
3. A link delivered via e-mail or SMS: If an attacker can trick a user into opening a website that the attacker controls, the attacker can easily embed the exploit into the main page of the website.

When the iPhone's version of Safari opens the malicious web page, arbitrary code embedded in the exploit is run with administrative privileges. In our proof of concept, this code reads the log of SMS messages, the address book, the call history, and the voicemail data. It then transmits all this information to the attacker. However, this code could be replaced with code that does anything that the iPhone can do. It could send the user's mail passwords to the attacker, send text messages that sign the user up for pay services, or record audio that could be relayed to the attacker."

As you may expect, the vulnerability is also present in both the Mac and Windows versions of Safari, though it may or may not be exploitable there.

Hmm, so you are an iPhone user and this has got you really worried and are thinking of switching off your iPhone until Apple fixes this vulnerability then hold on you might want to read further. Here are a few best practices that you should follow to protect yourself from this and similar vulnerabilities, in fact most of them hold good for any other mobile devices with internet browsing capabilities (recommended by the researchers themselves):

1. Only visit sites you trust. If you don't visit attackers' sites, you give them one less attack vector.
2. Only use WiFi networks you trust. If attackers have control of your Internet connection, they have the ability to insert exploits into any website you visit.
3. Don't open web links from emails. Many current viruses send links to malicious sites in emails that look like they are from trusted contacts.

The researchers have already notified Apple of the vulnerability and even proposed a fix so hopefully this should get fixed with a firmware update pretty soon. Fortunately there has been no evidence so far that this flaw had been exploited or that users had been affected. Lets hope it stays that way till the time iPhone provides a fix.

Watch the YouTube video below showing the iPhone hack:

Source

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