According to Forbes, today two researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner plan on releasing a bug in the iPhone SMS during the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. The bug is said to allow a person to take over an iPhone via SMS.
“Using a flaw they’ve found in the iPhone’s handling of text messages, the researchers say they’ll demonstrate how to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone’s functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device’s camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a mass-gadget hijacking.”
If that doesn’t sound scary enough, the only way to prevent the attack is to turn your iPhone off.
“If you receive a text message on your iPhone any time after Thursday afternoon containing only a single square character, Charlie Miller would suggest you turn the device off. Quickly.”
The researchers say that they notified Apple about the bug a month ago however, Apple has not released a fix for it.
Do we know if this is actually true or not… No. Do we know if iPhones all over the world are going to be hacked today… No. If you receive an email with a single square character, should you turn off your iPhone… that is up to you!
