HD Moore, one of the developers of the Metasploit pen-testing (and hacking) tool, has posted exploits and detailed instructions on how to attack an iPhone. The information takes hackers -- and the FBI and NSA -- one step closer to being able to remotely and surreptitiously take control of an iPhone and turn it into a surveillance device.
The exploits take advantage of a vulnerability in the TIFF image-rendering library that's used by the phone's browser, mail and iTunes software. It's the same vulnerability that allows Apple customers to unlock and customize their iPhones. But Moore's exploits will allow hackers to do much more.
Last month he added capability to the Metasploit tool that would give a hacker remote shell access to an iPhone in order to deliver any arbitrary malicious code to it. All attackers needed to do was write malicious payload code.
This week Moore posted some payload exploits and provided detailed instructions for writing more of them. Attackers could conceivably write code to hi-jack the contacts in an iPhone address book, access the list of received and sent calls and messages, turn the phone into a listening device, track the user's location or instruct the phone to snap photos of the user's surroundings -- including any companions who may be in sight of the camera lens.
Moore says the iPhone is more vulnerable than other phones because, as he noted on his blog, it's designed so that every application on the phone, if hacked, gives an intruder root access to the entire phone.
Moore told ComputerWorld that iPhones won't be any safer if Apple plugs the security hole, which it's expected to do in the next version of its iPhone firmware. Attackers will still be able to hack the phone.
Moore and fellow researcher Kevin Finisterre go into detail about writing exploits for the iPhone here, here and here.
Photo of sideways scrolling iPhone: Nicholas "Drudge" Penree
