4 ms·

IPhone hacked by Exploiting Safari in iOS 5, iOS 6

42 points by cooldeal 14y ago

Empro 14y ago
It affects the iPhone 5, which is coming out tomorrow, not to mention all the other iDevices that can run iOS 6. I'm sure Apple will have it patched soon enough.
- beedogs 14y ago
  They'll patch it for iOS 6. Anyone else is on their own.
barista 14y ago
For a browser to be hacked days before it is even released on large scale speaks of Apple's security practices.
- blaines 14y ago
  Since this works on iOS 5 and older hardware it's reasonable to believe the flaw has been around for some time.
- X-Istence 14y ago
  the iOS 6 GM has been seeded for some time.
  - bmeckel 14y ago
    Not only that but we don't know how long the security hole has been there for. I've been running iOS 6 for months now, wouldn't be surprised if these guys did the same thing in preparation.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  ? What does the size of the deployment have to do with being able to find a bug? It's not like they went searching through millions of slightly different copies of safari to find the broken one.
blaines 14y ago
"We really wanted to see how much time it would take a motivated attacker to do a clean attack against your iPhone. For me, that was the motivation. The easy part was finding the WebKit zero-day." If finding the exploit was the easy part I'm curious what the hard part was. Also, Apple should be incentivizing and supporting hackers more directly. It shouldn't have to take a (thankfully) white-hat hacker conference to get bugs like this fixed.
- dillona 14y ago
  Probably defeating code signing and sandboxing
bathat 14y ago
Wonderful. So, now owners of the iPhone 4 and 4s will have two options: 1) Upgrade to a newer version of iOS to patch the exploit, and suffer a major functionality regression with regard to maps. 2) Not upgrade and risk having all the personal information on the phone stolen by a malicious website.
- Splines 14y ago
  There's no middle ground? I assume that Opera wouldn't be vulnerable? What about the browsers that wrap UIWebView like Chrome?
  - bathat 14y ago
    Well... maybe I'm being too hyperbolic. But, I am under the impression that Safari is still the default handler for http things. So, links from the mail app or maps will open in Safari. I don't think it's that outrageous to suggest that malicious links have ever been sent via email. We can all sit here on HN and say that you shouldn't just go around clicking on everything that arrives in your inbox, but phishing is still something that banks deal with.
- adrr 14y ago
  What about original IPad owners who can't upgrade to IOS6.
vizzah 14y ago
I wonder if this exploit can be used to jailbreak Iphone 5, untethered at least.. some previous, user-friendly online jailbreaks used .pdf vulnerabilities in Safari, but I am not sure if they used it with a combination of another privelege escalation exploit..

42 points by cooldeal 14y ago

Empro 14y ago

It affects the iPhone 5, which is coming out tomorrow, not to mention all the other iDevices that can run iOS 6. I'm sure Apple will have it patched soon enough.

beedogs 14y ago
They'll patch it for iOS 6. Anyone else is on their own.

barista 14y ago

For a browser to be hacked days before it is even released on large scale speaks of Apple's security practices.

blaines 14y ago
Since this works on iOS 5 and older hardware it's reasonable to believe the flaw has been around for some time.
X-Istence 14y ago
the iOS 6 GM has been seeded for some time.
- bmeckel 14y ago
  Not only that but we don't know how long the security hole has been there for. I've been running iOS 6 for months now, wouldn't be surprised if these guys did the same thing in preparation.
tedunangst 14y ago
? What does the size of the deployment have to do with being able to find a bug? It's not like they went searching through millions of slightly different copies of safari to find the broken one.

blaines 14y ago

"We really wanted to see how much time it would take a motivated attacker to do a clean attack against your iPhone. For me, that was the motivation. The easy part was finding the WebKit zero-day." If finding the exploit was the easy part I'm curious what the hard part was. Also, Apple should be incentivizing and supporting hackers more directly. It shouldn't have to take a (thankfully) white-hat hacker conference to get bugs like this fixed.

dillona 14y ago
Probably defeating code signing and sandboxing

bathat 14y ago

Wonderful. So, now owners of the iPhone 4 and 4s will have two options: 1) Upgrade to a newer version of iOS to patch the exploit, and suffer a major functionality regression with regard to maps. 2) Not upgrade and risk having all the personal information on the phone stolen by a malicious website.

Splines 14y ago
There's no middle ground? I assume that Opera wouldn't be vulnerable? What about the browsers that wrap UIWebView like Chrome?
- bathat 14y ago
  Well... maybe I'm being too hyperbolic. But, I am under the impression that Safari is still the default handler for http things. So, links from the mail app or maps will open in Safari. I don't think it's that outrageous to suggest that malicious links have ever been sent via email. We can all sit here on HN and say that you shouldn't just go around clicking on everything that arrives in your inbox, but phishing is still something that banks deal with.
adrr 14y ago
What about original IPad owners who can't upgrade to IOS6.

vizzah 14y ago

I wonder if this exploit can be used to jailbreak Iphone 5, untethered at least.. some previous, user-friendly online jailbreaks used .pdf vulnerabilities in Safari, but I am not sure if they used it with a combination of another privelege escalation exploit..