Researchers in Germany (from the Fraunhofer Institute, the same place that brought us the MP3) have deduced a method to retrieve, without your authorization, all of your iPhone’s secrets. Passwords, that is. And it only takes six minutes. Oh dear.
The attack, which requires physical access to the iPhone (i.e. the attack cannot be done remotely), reveals user passwords and other sensitive information. The phone is jailbroken, then a series of scripts are run that effectively circumnavigate the phone’s encryption. (Note that the encryption isn’t actually broken in this attack.) Passwords for things like e-mail accounts and Wi-Fi networks are readily available to the attacker. And once the attacker has your e-mail account credentials, what’s to stop him from requesting your Facebook or Twitter password be reset? Bam, now he has that, too.
The glitch affects all iOS devices running the latest firmware.
What should you do if you lose your iPhone? Your best bet is to change any and all passwords that may have been used on the device: your e-mail, social networks, Amazon, etc. If you’ve logged into a service using the phone then you need to assumed an evildoer will have access to that password.
