Report Says iPhones Are Subject to Spyware/Malware Infection [Non-jailbroken iPhones Not as Safe as Expected]

Remember how last month an Australian coder has come up with an exploit for jailbroken iPhones to prove that those who didn’t change their root passwords are at risk? Well, after a few weeks someone else has turned it into a virus that was supposedly capable of stealing your sensitive data. But things got a bit more complicated today, as another Swiss developer said that Apple’s iPhone may not be as safe as the company claims it to be, even if it’s the original and not the pirated version.

Guilty of coming up with the report, Nicolas Seriot has come up with a number of shortcomings (email, keyboard entries in the cache and browser history files) that would allow hackers to create malicious apps that puts your iPhone’s security in danger.

The process is very simple as Seriot explains. Apparently the way to go with it is to come up with an iPhone app that hides portions of the code (or activates it a later time) from those in charge with the Apple’s app approval process — which isn’t easy, but doable.

But although the iPhone could be at risk even if it’s not the jailbroken model, Seriot has come up with a few ideas that would make it harder to “break”. His ideas include user prompted access authorization, firewalls and an OS-only keyboard cache that’s not available to apps.

There hasn’t been any official reply from Apple as of now, but we’re not expecting much from them, either.