Jailbroken iPhones - Security Risk?

Turns out that if you jailbreak your iPhone you remove most of the Apple’s security protections — 80% to be exact — and are vulnerable to attacks. At least according to Charlie Miller: “If you care about security, don’t use a jailbroken iPhone,” Miller, speaking at SyScan in Singapore, believes that by jailbreaking you [...]

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Turns out that if you jailbreak your iPhone you remove most of the Apple’s security protections — 80% to be exact — and are vulnerable to attacks. At least according to Charlie Miller:

“If you care about security, don’t use a jailbroken iPhone,”

Miller, speaking at SyScan in Singapore, believes that by jailbreaking you open your device some major risks. The operating system on an iPhone is basically a watered down version of Mac OS X. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Macs, Mac OS X is the latest OS that Apple computers run. Macs are generally known for pretty risk-free machines with a few exceptions. Those exceptions being Java, Adobe Flash, and PDF files. The major risk on the iPhone is opening your device up to any application available on Cydia/Icy. iPhones will generally only run applications that are digitally signed by Apple, this is not the case when jailbroken. So if you don’t know what you are installing, there is a possibility you can be in for a world of hurt.

Of course just a few hours ago Rene told you about the huge vulnerability within the iPhone’s SMS application that Charlie found, so nothing is completely safe.

Does this scare you away from jailbreaking your iPhone? Perhaps you are thinking about doing a restore and going legit from now on? Let us know if this warning from Charlie sways you to avoid the jailbreaking life!

[Via Macworld]

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Jailbroken iPhones - Security Risk?