iPhone Expert: Apple has included a Mechanism in iPhone Firmware 2.0 to Deactivate Malicious iPhone apps

iPhone expert, Zdziarski has discovered something interesting during his forensic examination of iPhone 3G.

He has found a remote URL which suggests that Apple has included a mechanism in iPhone firmware 2.0 to deactivate malicious iPhone apps already installed on the iPhone.

Jonathan “NerveGas” Zdziarski has published the iPhone Open Application Development book to develop unofficial native iPhone applications using the iPhone open source tool chain and is also the author of iPhone Forensics. He had recently ported the iPhone Open Source Tool chain to iPhone firmware 2.0.

Zdziarski "discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.”

The remote url that he discovered was: https://iphone-services.apple.com/clbl/unauthorizedApps 

He goes on to explain:

“This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down."

Apple seems to have implemented this mechanism in iPhone firmware 2.0 to give them some control on iPhone Apps that have already been installed on the iPhone.

We are guessing that Apple will use this mechanism only when they want to deactivate a malicious iPhone app.

What do you think?

[via iPhone Atlas]

 

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