iPhone Thief Found by GPS

A 31-year-old man who stole and iPhone was arrested recently because police were able to track the GPS function of the phone.

Horatio Toure rode a bicycle to a woman and grabbed her iPhone. However, the woman was carrying the iPhone used to demonstrate a real-time GPS tracking program, according to the San Fransisco Chronicle.

Toure was caught approximately 10 minutes after stealing the device, police said.

“This reminds me of the…

Lynn Announces Plans to Facilitate IT Procurement

Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn announced plans to facilitate the faster procurement of IT products for the Department of Defense. During the U.S. Strategic Command Cyberspace Symposium, Lynn announced the formation of a task force to speed the procurement process.

The newly formed task force will include DoD experts in acquisition, logistics and…

iPhone Jailbreaker Actually Trojan

Several months ago, researchers discovered a mobile botnet in mostly Eastern Europe comprised of jailbroken iPhones. Researchers have now found that an application that claims to unlock the iPhone is actually a Trojan designed to hijack PCs.

Users receive spam messages with a link to a website that allegedly offers an unlock function. However, when downloaded, the executable file actually alters the default DNS settings, stealing the Internet connections at…

Anti-Virus for iPad Users- But is it Necessary?

Intego has started to offer iPad users an anti-virus scanner that is capable of scanning the iPad, the first scanner of its kind. However, some have questioned if such a feature is really necessary.

The iPad runs the same operating system as the iPhone, which currently only “jailbroken” iPhones have been subjected to malware exploitation. Intego even acknowledges that there…

More Mobile Devices Than People at ATF

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, an agency of the Department of Justice, is tasked with regulatory and law enforcement missions. The majority of its 5,100 government employees and 2,400 contractors operate in the field and not in an office setting. ATF has sought to embrace telework and utilizing mobile device technology for work.

ATF currently has over…

Researchers Create Mobile Botnet with Weather App

At last week’s RSA Conference, security researchers with TippingPoint’s Digital Vaccine Group presented their research into mobile botnets. To date, the largest mobile botnet was centered predominately in Europe on “jailbroken” iPhones. Researchers Derek Brown and Daniel Tijerina were able to fool around 8,000 iPhone and Android users into “joining” a mobile botnet by downloading a seemingly innocent weather app.

The app, called WeatherFist, captured a user’s GPS coordinates and…

Hacking Contest Offers $100,000 for Smartphone Hacks

An annual hacking contest that has broken security on both pcs and macs is now offering a $100,000 prize for smartphone and browser hacks. The Pwn2Own competition will offer various cash prizes for carrying out various exploits on different mobile phone systems including the iPhone, Blackberry and Android.

In an announcement of the rules this year, ZDI’s Aaron Portnoy wrote “The increased presence and capabilities of smart phones…

Phishing for iPhone Victims

Scammers are employing a new phishing attack targeting iPhone users. The attacks impersonate Apple.com and attempt to gather sensitive information from unsuspecting iPhone users and could be used for a variety of scams.

The emails generally highlight a ‘Free 1 Year Warranty Extension’ and route the user to a phishing website. The site then asks for the users email address, the serial number of their iPhone, the type of phone,…

Spying on Your Smartphone

Last week, The New New Internet reported about the vulnerabilities in the iPhone to exploitation. The iPhone is not the only smartphone with vulnerabilities, as Tyler Shields, a senior security researcher at Veracode, demonstrated over the weekend.

According to an article on Kaspersky Labs Threat Post, Shields demonstrated a spyware program called txsBBSPY at the ShmooCon conference that can intercept email, text messages and determine a BlackBerry…

iPhone Vulnerable to Exploitation

The advent of smartphones has helped to propel Internet use across the globe. In countries in the developing world, most users access the Internet exclusively via cellphones. However, these smartphones bring forth a host of new opportunities for cyber criminals to exploit.

The iPhone, Apple’s smartphone, has a number of vulnerabilities that can be exploited remotely. Of particular concern is the way it handles digital certificates (which verify user legitimacy),…