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Our Blogs The BeerFiles So what's next - iPhone Patch Tuesday?
Our Blogs The BeerFiles So what's next - iPhone Patch Tuesday? | So what's next - iPhone Patch Tuesday? |
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| by Stan Beer | |
| Tuesday, 24 July 2007 | |
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In fact, given that the iPhone is first and foremost a communications device, it could even pose a potentially greater security risk than most computers. For nearly two years, security experts such as Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure have been warning of a coming explosion of spam botnets working through the address books in mobile phones to send millions of costly SMS messages worldwide. Given the cost of sending SMS messages, having your phone recruited into an SMS spam botnet is an even scarier thought than having your computer hijacked by spammers. The iPhone, however, is different from ordinary mobile phones in that it has the potential to become the first widely used pocket consumer Internet device. Armed with a full strength Safari browser, users are free to visit malicious websites and click on email links that will take them to places better left unvisited. That could potentially expose the phone side of the device to Hyponnen's nightmare. With the iPhone predicted to become a game changer and possibly the most popular mobile communications device to date, it is sure to become a target for malware purveyors. The fact is that the iPhone is a great portable Internet device and it is going to be widely used for that purpose. Now that it has been exposed as being as vulnerable through its browser, the hackers will be out in force. No doubt Apple is already working on a patch to plug the hole in Safari discovered by Independent Security Evaluators. However, as the security firm rightly points out, there are likely to be many more vulnerabilities in the iPhone, whether they be in Safari or other applications - just as there are with any Internet connected computer. As I write this article, my computer's security software has informed me of a number of spam emails I have received containing infectious malware. Is there any reason to think that security software for iPhones will not soon also be mandatory? Is there any reason to think that as more vulnerabilities are exposed that Apple will not be forced to push out its own cyclical fixes to users a la Microsoft's Patch Tuesday? One would hope that this scenario does not unfold. However, when we think of what we use our mobile phones for and the additional capabilities of the already immensely popular iPhone, it is hard to imagine that malware purveyors are not already working on their first exploit, perhaps waiting for the day when the iPhone becomes as ubiquitous as the iPod.
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