Jailbroken iPhones leave users more vulnerable

July 2, 2009, 09:15 AM —  IDG News Service — 

Jailbreaking an iPhone leaves users vulnerable to attack by stripping away most of the handset's security protections, a security researcher warned Thursday.

"If you care about security, don't use a jailbroken iPhone," said security researcher Charlie Miller, speaking at the SyScan security conference in Singapore on Thursday.

Jailbreaking is a term used to describe the process of stripping away the protections that prevent a user from installing applications on an iPhone that have not been digitally signed by Apple. Jailbreaking tools have been popular among users in the U.S. and elsewhere who do not want to be tied to a specific operator, or who want to add software or capabilities to the phone that Apple doesn't offer.

The process removes around 80 percent of the security protections built into the phone's software, making it more vulnerable, Miller said.

Overall, the stripped-down version of Mac OS X used in the iPhone makes it more secure than computers running the full version of the operating system, Miller said.

Many capabilities contained in the full version of the operating system, like support for Java and Adobe Flash, are not available on the iPhone. In addition, the iPhone doesn't support many of the features contained in PDF files, which have proved to be a fertile source of Mac OS X vulnerabilities. This gives attackers fewer options when looking for vulnerabilities to exploit, he said.

In addition, iPhones are limited to running applications that have been digitally signed by Apple, which means that an attacker cannot simply install and run their own software on the handset. The iPhone also has hardware protections for data stored in memory.

Jailbreaking an iPhone disables these two security functions, making the phone more vulnerable to an attack, Miller said.

IDG News Service

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

I like it!
Close

On Twitter now

iphone

Powered by Twitter
You are logged in | Sign out
Sign in and post to Twitter

What are you thinking?

Cancel Tweet sent

On Twitter now

Post a comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
peer-to-peer

jfruh
Apple syncing patent can't come soon enough

pasmith
New Twitter features borrow from 3rd party clients

Esther Schindler
Open Source Changes the Software Acquisition Process

mikelgan
How to set up continuous podcast play on the new iTunes

David Strom
Five important Windows 7 mobility features

sjvn
Guard your Wi-Fi for your own sake                        

Sandra Henry-Stocker
Grepping on Whole Words

 

Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News
Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325

Join the conversation here

The Daily Tip

The Daily TipQuick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.

Hot tips:

Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.

Newsletters

Subscribe to ITWORLD TODAY and receive the latest IT news and analysis.

I would like to receive offers via email from ITworld partners.
By clicking submit you agree to the terms and conditions outlined in ITworld's privacy policy.
Featured Sponsor

AISO founders envisioned a Web hosting company that was environmentally friendly. While the company employed energy-efficient innovations like solar panels, its infrastructure produced unacceptable power and cooling requirements. Find out how AISO leveraged AMD technology to overcome their challenge in this case study white paper.

In this whitepaper, Scalar explores the opportunity to change the landscape with respect to mission critical databases built around Oracle. Leveraging technologies such as Linux, high-end commodity processing power and Oracle RAC technology to architect, design, build and maintain database infrastructure that delivers maximum availability, reliability and performance at a fraction of traditional cost.

On a typical day, weather.com, the Web site for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, serves up between 15 million and 20 million page views. But in September 2004, when back-to-back hurricanes ransacked Florida, the peak traffic on one day more than tripled: over 70 million page views by more than 7 million unique visitors. Read the full success story now.

Marketplace