Apple Quickly Patches iPhone SMS Vulnerability

No sooner have researchers exposed a texting vulnerability in the iPhone than Apple comes out with a patch to secure it.

Last week at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner demonstrated how an iPhone could be taken over with a specially-crafted text message. Once an attacker has done that, he can install malware on the phone, if desired, or use it to perform spam more attacks on others.

Unsurprisingly, this received a lot of publicity, especially as the flaw also exists in the Android and Windows Mobile platforms.

Equally unsurprising is Apple’s hurried response – on Friday they released a patch for the texting flaw in the iPhone 3.0.1 software update.

The update can be downloaded and installed through iTunes, after which it’s installed on the iPhone when the user plugs the device into a computer.