Slashdot Mirror
Security Firms Can't Protect iPhone From Threats
nk497 writes "F-Secure researchers are calling attention to the fact that it's impossible to run third-party anti-virus on iPhones, because the SDK doesn't allow for it. It's a problem, as they claim malware will start to target the phone. 'None of the existing anti-virus vendors can make one, without help from Apple,' chief research officer Mikko Hypponen said. 'Apple hasn't been too interested in developing antivirus solutions for the iPhone, because there are no viruses, which of course, isn't exactly true.' At the moment, the only worms faced by the iPhone have targeted unlocked, jailbroken devices — so Apple's not too bothered protecting users of such phones." While Apple claims that the iPhone's closed nature offers protection to its users, and security vendors maneuver for a piece of a market now closed to them, clearly both sides are pushing their own self-interest.
And it's from Apple.
So it's doubly perfect. It's not like Mac OS has any security problems either.
So nothing to see here.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Yep, if they are worried, just push it out to Cydia. Of course most (before someone comes whining, I did not say all!) of the users with jailbroken phones use pirated software, so there's no money in that.
FUD
For those new to the internet, that would be Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. This sort of garbage would be a pretty classic example of it.
What I think is most telling about that quote is how an AV company has blurred the distinction between a "virus" and what basically amounts to a default password security hole. Sorry, but how does that make me want to trust you to run software on my device if you don't care to demonstrate you know the difference between these two types of attack?
The only reason why the jailbroken phones were vulnerable was because the default SSH password was not changed. No amount of AV is going to protect against a user's stupidity. This statement by F-Secure is about the money-making opportunity they're dying to exploit, and they're clearly riding the wave of negative publicity surrounding the closed platform nature of the iPhone.
F-Secure cannot get money out of iPhone users, therefore whines and tries to scare executives.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
"While Apple claims that the iPhone's closed nature offers protection to its users"
Going further, I have absolutely no patience with people who hack iPhones. A phone is an appliance connected to a public asset - EM bandwidth. People using public assets have a duty of care, and it's the failure of duty of care (tragedy of the Commons) that has done a lot of damage to society.
What I do on my own local network is my affair, but I think increasingly we should have a reasonable expectation that anything connected to a public network is properly secured and maintained, just like (in the UK at least) we test cars annually to check they are safe on the road. I'm afraid that the Wild West days of the Internet are increasingly over - and the excesses of some people is bringing down an overreaction.
Over the next 20 years we have to find a way to put the genie back in the bottle without killing the genie or spoiling the bottle. The politicians will try to screw this up. But the rest of us need to realise that we need to grow up too - we need to understand that if we want a reliable public internet and mobile phone system, we need to stop treating people who act irresponsibly as if their behaviour was acceptable or clever. Otherwise anti-virus and anti-malware software will continue to eat up too many of our CPU cycles, shorten the lives of our hard drives, and cause increasing frustration to those of us who actually need to earn a living, and have to use the Internet and the phone system to do it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
wow, they were really trying to sell anti-virus software for the PalmOS devices? There's a saying about having a hammer and everything looks like a nail and these anti-virus people sound like they've got the hammer. Windows was the perfect nail because it constantly needed pounding on to fix this or that flaw or breach. But when new products enter the market without the flawed security system of Windows, what's a lonely Windows security company to do? Make stuff up I guess.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I thought it was running some form of Unix/Linux sort of OS.
I realize these modern day snake oil salesmen have convinced corporate America that their product is effective against all viruses on all platforms. However if you look at the definition file that they install on all the systems you'll see that the signatures list which platform they're for. I was curious so I greped the file. Turns out that while there's hundreds of thousands of windows definitions in the file there's only tens for linux and fewer for sun.
When pressed on this they'll tell you that they look for all those viruses so they arn't passed by the ftp/http/mail server on the unix box. While there's some merit to this position I don't see how it's at all relevant to the iPhone.
The main problems are
A) No real way to get it to work on non-jailbroken iPhones.
B) The fact that every iPhone worm worked because of having SSH running with a default password that is basically equivalent to going to Defcon with a laptop with a stickynote saying "Username is user password is alpine" of course things are going to turn out badly. Everyone knows what the default SSH login is on iPhones (alpine) and when there are thousands of them running with the same password why are people surprised when bad things happen?
C) It is a lot easier to make a virus for Android than the iPhone.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
That's all I hear.
I love how everyone pretends that recent trojan targeted "jailbroken" iPhones.
It didn't. It targeted stupid users who happened to have a jailbroken iPhone. Specifically, it targeted users who install OpenSSH without changing the default password (ignoring warnings to the effect). There's no vulnerability here, and a stock jailbroken iPhone is not vulnerable. The same exact kind of malware can affect every poorly configured UNIX system out there - for example, that router-based botnet that infected routers with default SSH passwords running Linux. There are tons of Linux rootkits out there too, and servers with poor passwords are rooted all the time. Does that mean we urgently need craptacular AV software on all Linux boxes?
On the other hand, it is true that a non-jailbroken iPhone has an extra layer of protection in the form of compulsive executable signing. Apple ostensibly has superior security (in non-jailbroken devices), but that's just because they lock down the device tight. It's "good" old Trusted Computing, the kind that does not trust the user. By jailbreaking the device, you're freeing yourself from nanny Apple's oversight. If it turns out you were better off with it, well, that's your own fault.
Oh my God! My PS3, 360 and Wii are on the internet and they don't have anti-virus, too! What are we going to do!
Seriously, this is news for nerds? Some morons jailbreak their phones, leaving SSH with a default password, they get hacked, and suddenly A/V firms think they have an "in"? You could install every A/V program on the planet on a windows PC, but if you install SSH with a default password, it will still get hacked.
today is spelling optional day.
No amount of AV is going to protect against a user's stupidity.
And no amount of AV is going to protect against vendor/distributor stupidity either. Here we have a program, running on a non-firewalled device, which on install, instead of being non-functional, opens up to the whole world with a default password. This is not the 1990's people! In this day and age, I expect a program to be secure by default... whatever it takes, even if it means it is non-functional at install.
I actually have a jailbroken iphone on which I installed openssh. When I logged in I immediately realized the risk I was running and changed the password. However, between the time of installing openssh on my iPhone and the moment I changed the password there was at least a period of 5 minutes in which people could have hijacked the machine. Unforgivable. This distributor should be ashamed of himself.