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iPhone Root Password Hacked in Three Days

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the not-that-it-will-do-anybody-any-good dept.

unPlugged-2.0 writes "An Australian developer blog writes that the iPhone root password has already been cracked. The story outlines the procedure but doesn't give the actual password. According to the story: 'The information came from an an official Apple iPhone restore image. The archive contains two .dmg disk images: a password encrypted system image and an unencrypted user image. By delving into the unencrypted image inquisitive hackers were able to discover that all iPhones ship with predefined passwords to the accounts 'mobile' and 'root', the last of which being the name of the privileged administration account on UNIX based systems.' Though interesting, it doesn't seem as though the password is good for anything. The article theorizes it may be left over from development work, or could have been included to create a 'false trail' for hackers."

5 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. Passwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The password for root is "alpine"
    The "mobile" user accounts password is "dottie"

    1. Re:Passwords by antiNeo2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

      You've got it backwards. The root password is "dottie" and the mobile password is "alpine".

  2. Netinfo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know I'm just an AC - so this will get modded waaaaaay down, but:

    This isn't the password for the running account - you'd have to boot the phone into single-user mode. The running passwords would be stored in Netinfo.

    This is going to turn into a lot of FUD....

  3. from full-disclosure by shivan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Re: [Full-disclosure] iPhone Security Settings

    From: Erik Tews (e_tewscdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de)
    Date: Sun Jul 01 2007 - 17:20:37 CDT

        * Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

    Am Montag, den 02.07.2007, 00:07 +0200 schrieb Fabio Pietrosanti (naif):
    > There are a couple of user with their password:
    >
    > root:XUU7aqfpey51o:0:0::0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/sh
    > mobile:/smx7MYTQIi2M:501:0::0:0:Mobile User:/var/mobile:/bin/sh
    >
    > Does someone have some time to arrange a quick john session (should be
    > quick)?

    Loaded 2 passwords with 2 different salts (Standard DES [64/64 BS])
    alpine (mobile)
    dottie (root)
    guesses: 2 time: 0:00:00:16 (3) c/s: 551883 trying: royour - b1o2w8

    Yes, it was quick

  4. Re:hmm... GPL? by Pius+II. · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why don't you post those lines in the context they belong, as an advisory comment in the (free as in free) bzip2 source? Oh yeah, because you prefer to badmouth people instead of checking your facts.
    For the record, here's the source.