Apple is apparently ramping up its battle to prevent iPhone and iPod owners from jailbreaking their devices. The company has applied for a patent, titled “Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device,” that covers a series of security measures to automatically protect devices from thieves and other “unauthorized users.”

Read More news.cnet.com

Here’s an unsettling product: the iPhone Spy Stick. It’s a USB stick that, when plugged into an iPhone, can recover all sorts of info that you thought you deleted.

Everything from texts to photos to internet history is accessible by this bad boy.

Read More gizmodo.com

Apple has just pushed new updates; iOS 4.0.2 for the iPhone and iPod touch, and iOS 3.2.2 for iPads. The update does what we all expected, takes away any jailbreaking fun you were having with JailbreakMe, but also protects you from the latest PDF security hole.

Read More www.mobilemag.com

The Foxit document reader has been updated to fix the same critical bug that currently leaves iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches wide open to malware attacks.

Foxit Reader version 4.1.1.0805 “fixes the crash issue caused by the new iPhone/iPad jailbreak program which can be exploited to inject arbitrary code into a system and execute it there,” Foxit officials said. They recommend that users install the update to protect themselves.

Read More www.theregister.co.uk

Apple is quietly wrestling with a security conundrum. How the company handles it could dictate the pace at which cybercriminals accelerate attacks on iPhones and iPads. Apple is hustling to issue a patch for a milestone security flaw that makes it possible to remotely hack —or jailbreak — iOS, the operating system for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch.

Read More www.usatoday.com

Elcomsoft, a Russian firm known for its “password cracking” savvy, is out with new software that helps iPhone users determine the password used to encrypt backed-up iPhone data. Featuring the company’s GPU acceleration technology, Elcomsoft’s “Password Breaker” enables “forensic access” to password-protected backups for iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod Touch 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Gen devices. According to Elcomsoft, this is the first comparable iPhone/iPod password recovery tool on the market.

Read More www.srimeenakshimobiles.com

Right now, if you visit a web page and load a simple PDF file, you may give total control of your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to a hacker. The security bug affects all devices running iOS 3.1.2 and higher.

Update: Initially we thought that this exploit only effected iOS4 devices, but it turns out all iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads running 3.1.2 and higher are susceptible.

Read More gizmodo.com

As smartphones and the applications that run on them take off, businesses and consumers are beginning to confront a budding dark side of the wireless Web.

Online stores run by Apple Inc., Google Inc. and others now offer more than 250,000 applications such as games and financial tools. The apps have been a key selling point for devices like Apple’s iPhone. But concerns are growing among security researchers and government officials that efforts to keep out malicious software aren’t keeping up with the apps craze.

Read More online.wsj.com

Recent top 10 Twitter topics—“Lost finale,” “Geek Pride,” “Uniqlo Lucky Line”—may sound innocent enough, but attackers are increasingly using them to serve malware to unsuspecting users.

One recent attack, which aims to swipe users’ banking information, is capitalizing on the release of the first official Twitter iPhone application. Click a link in an attacker’s Twitter post—one offending message says it’s the “Official Twitter App”—and get directed to a website hosting a Trojan application.

Read More www.informationweek.com

Safari on a Mac and Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7 were also exploited

It’s been an action-packed couple of days of Pwn2Own hacking contests at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver.  Hackers eroded Apple’s image of superior security, making quick work of both Microsoft and Apple products alike.

Read More www.dailytech.com

Our guide to your life: this week, a few tech tips can quickly reunite you with your BlackBerry or iPhone. You’ve lost your most prized possession: your mobile device. Don’t write it off just yet. We explain what to do when your cellphone goes missing.

Read More www.theglobeandmail.com

DO you have nightmares about your iPhone being stolen or lost? Fear not, there are apps that will track and display your phone’s location on a map, remotely trigger an alarm and send a curt warning to the would-be thief.

Read More www.theaustralian.com.au

Two years ago, security researchers showed the Black Hat security conference how hackers could exploit vulnerabilities in Apple’s Safari web browser on the iPhone to steal your data or another exploit to send text messages or turn of the microphone to eavesdrop on you.

The first exploit required the iPhone owner to visit a website. Another exploit was triggered via a maliciously formed text message. Now, a malicious worm is biting its way through Apple’s iPhones.

Read More www.guardian.co.uk

Another week, another worm hitting jailbroken iPhones. As with the previous exploits, which Rickrolled your phone’s wallpaper and stole your data, this nasty piece of work burrows its way into your jailbroken device if you haven’t changed the password for the iPhone’s root account—you have changed your root password, right? Right?

Read More www.macworld.com

The second worm to infect jailbroken iPhone users reportedly targets customers of Dutch online bank ING Direct.

Surfers visiting the site with infected devices are redirected to a phishing site designed to harvest online banking login details, the BBC reports. ING Direct told the BBC it planned to warn users’ of the attack via its website, as well as briefing front line call centre staff on the threat.

Read More www.theregister.co.uk

Cisco launched an iPhone application Friday aimed at helping corporate security managers respond to threats on-the-go.
Aimed squarely at enterprise IT departments, the app is networked to Cisco’s Security Intelligence Operations to enable users to receive realtime notifications of attacks on a corporate network.

Read More www.informationweek.com

The bloke who released the first iPhone virus from his home in Wollongong did not think he would get death threats, media interviews or job offers. Ashley Towns, 21, said that he got all three in one day after an audacious viral security “experiment” got out of hand.

“I was reading a blog that said in bold letters to change your passwords and I wondered how many had. The problem was that most of the people on his network had not,” said Towns.

Read More www.fudzilla.com

Following the recent discovery of a worm that changes wallpaper on iPhones, Intego has spotted another piece of malware that attacks iPhones, one that is far more dangerous than the ikee worm. This hacker tool, which Intego identifies as iPhone/Privacy.A, takes advantage of the same vulnerability in the iPhone as the ikee worm, allowing hackers to connect to any jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch (iPhones or iPod touches hacked to allow installation of software other than through iTunes) whose owners have not changed the root password.

Read More blog.intego.com

A 21-year-old Australian man has admitted creating what is thought to be the first virus to infect Apple iPhones.

The virus, which can spread from phone to phone, changes the iPhone’s wallpaper to a photograph of 1980s singer Rick Astley - best known for his hit Never Gonna Give You Up.

Read More www.abc.net.au

One Dutch hacker managed to find and hack into jailbroken iPhones, though it seems the hacker was more interested in a few euros than malicious ends. However, the incident is another reminder that users of jailbroken iPhones need to be more vigilant about security.

Read More arstechnica.com