To all the proud iPhone owners - Beware of the iPhone SMS Hack

While iPhones are now the ultimate tech gadget worldwide, a fashion statement, a measure of class, even, in some societies, a new hack - iPhone SMS hack was recently revealed that may get iPhone users to scale back on their use. A quick look up on some trade and tech sites with a marketplace shows that the iPhone is hot property. People are outbidding each other for the latest 3GS model. This bodes bad news for Apple. It may even disparage other phone users who are currently using older models who desire to make the switch to the ever popular iPhone. Or, may be, it's time you look for iPhone Alternatives!

The scariest thing: the iPhone can be hacked by easily sending a text message (SMS). The vulnerability of currently the most popular mobile phone in the world has sent shockwaves across the internet world, particularly the hackers.

At the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, a convention where hacking geeks, experts and researchers get together to discuss newly exposed security loopholes and flaws, news of the iPhone hack has got researchers scrambling to discuss on the matter before the conference ends.
    So how does the hack work? All the attacker needs is the victim’s phone number. With it, the attacker then sends an sms to the victim’s iPhone. Within a matter of minutes, the attacker will have full absolute control over the victim’s iPhone. The attacker can use any applications, make calls, steal data, turn on the camera, turn on the microphone, basically, the iPhone will be at the whim at the attacker. Worse still, the attacker can then attack friends of the victim with iPhones. This is done by sending the same virus-tagged sms out to the victim’s whole contact list. The loophole basically makes use of a memory corruption bug in the iPhone.

To the victim, the only way to know if someone is hacking your iPhone will be an sms on your iPhone that contains a single square character. You will then notice you will be barred from making or receiving any calls from your iPhone. The only solution to this hack is by physically turning off your iPhone and rebooting it again. That renders the hack useless and for the hack to work again, the attacker has to send the sms again. While this means that the hack can be easily countered, its consequences are serious and could be absolutely damaging. The attacker could easily send the viral sms while you have your iPhone on silent mode and steal important data while you are oblivious to it. The attacker could then make international phone calls, calls costing an arm and a leg and you would only know about it when your large bill comes.

The sad yet scary revelation to this is that Apple was made known to this security flaw as much as six weeks ago but have not even bothered to release a statement on it, nor has a fix been made known to the technological world as of yet.

So, Apple, before everyone dumps their iPhone for the more reliable yet less fancy other phones in the market, isn’t it time for a fix?