Tuesday, January 8, 2008

A 1.1.3 Firmware Leak or Just a Bad Joke?


iPhoneAlley's Edward Kirk reports, " A few days ago an incident occurred that might mean the beginning of a less secure world for modified iPhones. This is probably the first recorded incidence of a malicious attack that directly took advantage of iPhone modification, and also tested the ability of the community to respond when these things happen.It was a case of someone trying to maliciously take advantage of people's willingness to modify their iPhones, combined with curiosity about the upcoming firmware update. Who seems to be an 11 year-old by the name "Mikey" posted a malicious file for download on a modification forum pretending to be a leak of the unreleased iPhone v1.1.3 firmware.Luckily the community was quick to respond, outing the file as a hoax.As far as malicious files go, this was pretty mild, and as far as I know, nobody's phones were severely damaged. The file did nothing on installation, but when uninstalled, it removed over 20 binary files from the phone, mostly from Erica Sadun's utilities in the /bin/ directory.As to exactly why an alleged 11 year-old created a bad hack, your guess is as good as mine."

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