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DoS attack on iPhone causes memory leak, freeze

updated 01:25 pm EST, Sat January 26, 2008

New iPhone vulnerability

iPhone owners should be on guard against a new threat, which fortunately doesn't harm the device, but still induces a freeze by taking all available system memory. According to security firm SecurityFocus, the vulnerability is exposed by a Denial of Service attack, when a maliciously crafted webpage is viewed. The page will insert code into the iPhone, which continually eats up available system memory before causing a kernel panic.

While not the first attack on the iPhone, SecurityFocus believes it could be harmful to the device's wellbeing by potentially executing remote code.

The DoS exploit has been verified to work on the 1.1.2 iPhone firmware; Apple has not commented on the issue

 
Previous Comments

iPhone security

01/26, 05:42pm reply

Does this affect users running iPhone firmware 1.1.3?

imagine engine

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2007

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old bug?

01/27, 06:02am reply

Visiting linked page gave me idea of some old Safari flow rediscovered on iPhone. If you look on the list of vulnerable systems beside iPhone 1.1.2 you will find Mac OS X 10.4.2 and earlier version of Tiger. Firmware 1.1.3 is not listed.

ViktorCode

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2006

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