Owners of Apple gadgets, including the recently launched iPad 2, are being presented with an easy way to jailbreak their devices, opening up the possibility of installing applications that have not been approved by the official Apple AppStore.
Normally, jailbreaking requires users to connect their device to a computer before they can start to tamper with the set-up of their iPhone or iPad and gain access to the Cydia underground app store.
The drive-by jailbreak is possible because the website exploits a vulnerability in the way that the mobile edition of Safari (the default browser used in the iOS operating system) handles PDF files.
“Because Apple has not yet patched this latest vulnerability, iPad and iPhone users could be at risk from hackers if they chose to exploit the same vulnerability to install malicious code,” said Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos South Africa.
“Cybercriminals would be able to create booby-trapped webpages that could – if visited by an unsuspecting iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad owner – run code on visiting devices without the user’s permission.”
Sophos’ experts have added detection of the exploit code as Exp/PdfEx-ER, but as Apple does not allow anti-virus software to be listed in the official iPhone AppStore there is no on-device protection available for users.
“A website like JailBreakMe is making it easy to jailbreak your iPhone or iPad – but it could also be giving a blueprint to malicious hackers on how to infect devices with malware. There are many cybercriminals who would love to infect iPhones and iPads, and eyes will now be turning towards Apple to see how quickly they can issue a patch for iOS to close this vulnerability,” Myroff concluded.
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