Hacking iPhone through charging cable

[darster]

Interesting article about hacking iphone through charging cable. Curious if it's only through after market cables, and not genuine apple cables.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/03/tech/mobile/hack-iphone-charger/index.html

 

[Menel]

Just don't plug into strange computers. Even tiny single board computers wrapped up in plastic like an oversized charger.

http://www.blackhat.com/us-13/briefings.html#Lau

"To demonstrate practical application of these vulnerabilities, we built a proof of concept malicious charger, called Mactans, using a BeagleBoard."

http://beagleboard.org/

 

[ftaok]

Interesting article about hacking iphone through charging cable. Curious if it's only through after market cables, and not genuine apple cables.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/03/tech/mobile/hack-iphone-charger/index.html

That CNN article tells you nothing. I read a different article that had more details. Apparently the hacking device is not a charger. It's a complete computer on a tiny board. The "charger" is about 10x the size of a regular charger.

Could someone miniaturize it and disguise it as a charger? Sure, but it would still need to have the user plug it in.

A more insidious method would be to build a hacking charge point and put it in a mall or rest stop. Like the USB equipped chairs at the airport.

 

[scaredpoet]

It could probably be thwarted by making sure your iOS device is passcode locked before plugging it into any "charger" that you don't own or know the provenance of.