Evil Phone Charger Will Hack Your iPhone

Who would have thought that something so simple as plugging your phone in to charge, could leave you vunerable to hackers? Well according to researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, that is exactly how your iPhone could be hacked.

They claim that they have created an iPhone charger that can slyly install malware on the Apple phone, allowing unscrupulous hackers unlimited access, as reported by Forbes. The researchers also claim that all users are affected, it doesnt matter whether you have a jail broken device or user interaction.Billy Lau, Yeongjin Jang and Chengyu Song of Georgia Tech say they have successfully transferred their own software into the current iPhones through a makeshift charger. Notice the phrase “makeshift” charger, signalling that there are limitations with this discovery. Forbes notes that the group built its charger using BeagleBoard, a $45 open-source hardware single-board computer, which is too big to fit into Apple’s traditional charger hardware. However the use of BeagleBoard does demonstrate how easy it is to build a nasty charger that would fool most consumers.

Researchers will officially reveal the device at the end of July at the annual security conference Black Hat, when hopefully we’ll receive more details. In the meantime, they say they have informed Apple.

So your iPhone is safe to charge, for now! We’ll keep you posted of any developments.

[Image via daydealers]

SOURCE: http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/03/iphones-charger-hack/