A team of computer security consultants say they have found a flaw in Apple’s wildly popular iPhone that allows them to take control of the device.
The researchers, working for Independent Security Evaluators, a company that tests its clients’ computer security by hacking it, said that they could take control of iPhones through a WiFi connection or by tricking users into going to a Web site that contains malicious code. The hack, the first reported, allowed them to tap the wealth of personal information the phones contain.
Although Apple built considerable security measures into its device, said Charles A. Miller, the principal security analyst for the firm, “Once you did manage to find a hole, you were in complete control.” The firm, based in Baltimore, alerted Apple about the vulnerability this week and recommended a software patch that could solve the problem.
A spokeswoman for Apple, Lynn Fox, said, “Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users.”
“We’re looking into the report submitted by I.S.E. and always welcome feedback on how to improve our security,” she said.
There is no evidence that this flaw had been exploited or that users had been affected.
Dr. Miller, a former employee of the National Security Agency who has a doctorate in computer science, demonstrated the hack to a reporter by using his iPhone’s Web browser to visit a Web site of his own design.
Once he was there, the site injected a bit of code into the iPhone that then took over the phone. The phone promptly followed instructions to transmit a set of files to the attacking computer that included recent text messages — including one that had been sent to the reporter’s cellphone moments before — as well as telephone contacts and e-mail addresses.
“We can get any file we want,” he said. Potentially, he added, the attack could be used to program the phone to make calls, running up large bills or even turning it into a portable bugging device.
Steven M. Bellovin, a professor of computer science at Columbia University, said, “This looks like a very genuine hack.” Mr. Bellovin, who was for many years a computer security expert at AT&T Labs Research, said the vulnerability of the iPhone was an inevitable result of the long-anticipated convergence of computing and telephony.
“We’ve been hearing for a few years now that viruses and worms were going to be a problem on cellphones as they became a little more powerful, and we’re there,” he said. The iPhone is a full-fledged computer, he noted, “and sure enough, it’s got computer-grade problems.”
He said he suspected that phones based on the Windows mobile operating system would be similarly “attackable,” though he had not yet heard of any attacks.
“It’s not the end of the world; it’s not the end of the iPhone,” he said, any more than the regular revelations of vulnerabilities in computer browser software have killed off computing. “It is a sign that you cannot let down your guard. It is a sign that we need to build software and systems better.”
Details on the vulnerability, but not a step-by-step guide to hacking the phone, can be found at http://www.exploitingiphone.com/, which the researchers said would be unveiled today.
Hackers around the world have been trying to unveil the secrets of the iPhone since its release last month; most have focused their efforts on unlocking the phone from its sole wireless provider, AT&T, and getting unauthorized programs to run on it. The iPhone is a closed system that cannot accept outside programs and can be used only with the AT&T wireless network.
Some of those hackers have posted bulletins of their progress on the Web. A posting went up on Friday that a hacker going by the name of “Nightwatch” had created and started an independent program on the phone.
The Independent Security Evaluators researchers were able to crack the phone’s software in a week, said Aviel D. Rubin, the firm’s founder and the technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Rubin, who bought an iPhone the day after the cellphone was released, said in an interview that he had approached three colleagues, Dr. Miller, Joshua Mason and Jake Honoroff, and offered them an enticing prize if they would try to crack the iPhone. “I told the guys I would buy them iPhones.”
Dr. Miller had already been exploring weaknesses in the computer versions of Safari, Apple’s Web browser, and was planning to reveal that vulnerability, a relatively common kind of flaw known as a buffer overflow, at the Black Hat computer security conference next month. Dr. Miller instantly thought to see whether the phone, which uses a version of Safari, would be as vulnerable.
Mr. Rubin said the research was not intended to show that the iPhone was necessarily more vulnerable to hacking than other phones, or that Apple products were less secure than those from other companies. “Anything as complex as a computer — which is what this phone is — is going to have vulnerabilities,” he said.
There are far more viruses, worms and other malicious software affecting Windows systems than Apple systems. But Mr. Rubin said that Apple products have drawn fewer attacks because the computers have fewer users, and hackers reach for the greatest impact.
“Windows gets hacked all the time not because it is more insecure than Apple, but because 95 percent of computer users are on Windows,” he said. “The other 5 percent have enjoyed a honeymoon that will eventually come to an end.”
The iPhone is becoming a victim of its own success, he said. “The irony is that the more popular something is, the more insecure it becomes, because popularity paints a large target on its back.”
Mr. Rubin said his goal was to discover vulnerabilities and warn of them so that companies would strengthen their products and consumers would not be lulled into thinking that the technology they use was completely secure.
Mr. Rubin said, “I will think twice before getting on a random public WiFi network now,” but his overall opinion of the phone has not changed.
“You’d have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands to get it away from me,” he said.
