Security Hole or Minor Privacy Bug in iPhone’s Emergency Call Feature?

BY Jason

Published 7 Oct 2008

Privacy bug in iPhone's Emergency call feature

In iPhone fimrware 2.1, Apple had fixed the security flaw that was discovered in iPhone firmware 2.0.2 which allowed someone to access your data and certain iPhone apps even when you have the passcode lock feature turned on.

The blogosphere has been buzzing about another small security hole in the Emergency call feature that was discovered by a programmer, Karl Kraft’s 12-year-old son.

So lets see what’s the fuss about after the jump.

The security hole has been described and seen in the screen shot below:

If you are on iPhone’s Emergency call screen and you receive a text message, you will see the regular preview, showing the sender as well as part of the text message.


Privacy bug in iPhone's Emergency call feature

The problem is that even if you turn off "Show SMS Preview" (Settings -> General -> Passcode Lock -> Show SMS Preview), you still see the regular preview in the Emergency call screen, showing the sender as well as part of the text message instead of the generic "New Text Message" that is seen when iPhone’s screen is locked.

But I don’t think it is a security hole, it can be considered as a minor privacy bug which I am sure Apple will fix in future iPhone firmware but definitely not a security bug.

However, the fact that a 12 year-old figured this out is quite amazing. So well done to him.

What do you think?

[via Ars Technica]




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