Large iOS Security Threat
An article from MSNBC.
You’re browsing the Internet on your iPhone or iPad when you’re suddenly prompted for some personal information. But you’re no dummy: Before you enter it, you check the URL bar to confirm that you really are on a trusted site. When you’re sure, you type in the information. Careful as you were, you still may have handed sensitive data to a bad guy.
How is that possible when you’re absolutely certain that you’re on a trustworthy website? Because right now you can’t trust the URL bar on your iOS device’s mobile Safari browser, thanks to a security exploit.
The exploit was first discovered by David Vieira-Kurz of MajorSecurity. It affects the mobile Safari browser on iOS 5.1 and has been tested on the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, second-generation iPad and third-generation iPad. According to Vieira-Kurz, the exploit is possible thanks to an error in how new windows are opened using a javascript method:
This can be exploited to potentially trick users into supplying sensitive information to a malicious website, because information displayed in the address bar can be constructed in a certain way, which may lead users to believe that they’re visiting another website than the displayed website.
MajorSecurity has created a demonstration of the exploit. You can check it out by following this link on a device which is running iOS 5.1. After pressing the “demo” button on that website, you will see Safari open a new window which displays “
http://www.apple.com
” in the URL bar, even though the website you’re viewing is actually hosted on “
http://www.majorsecurity.net
.”
There’s no fix for the issue right now, but it shouldn’t take long for Apple to patch the exploit. In the meantime, you should be careful about which links you follow.
The Internet Died For About 30 Seconds
MANY people have been getting reports that the Internet — yes, the Internet — died for a brief period of time across the country.
We have heard reports that the Internet went out in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Raleigh, N.C., Dallas, several cities in the Midwestern United States and New York so far.
One customer said he was disconnected during the course of a phone call with Time Warner and called back to hear an odd message stating calls could not be completed at the time.
MANY people have been getting reports that the Internet — yes, the Internet — died for a brief period of time across the country.
We have heard reports that the Internet went out in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Raleigh, N.C., Dallas, several cities in the Midwestern United States and New York so far.
One customer said he was disconnected during the course of a phone call with Time Warner and called back to hear an odd message stating calls could not be completed at the time.
