Malware And Network Attacks Via Mobile Soon To Be Realized

Two disturbing mobile news this week should have security analysts and mobile warriors on a bit of an alert. No, I'm not talking about the Blackberry issue with the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis. That situation is looking more and more like RIM is backing away and capitulating.

I'm talking about vulnerabilities in mobile OS and systems that can allow hackers to break into mobile systems to wreck havoc or spread malicious codes.

Yesterday, a hole in the iOS so big that it allow users to jailbreak their iPhone via a Web browser. I'm not that well read when it comes to the inner workings of a mobile platform but it does sound pretty bad.

And it gets worse.

Game consoles are suppose to fun and entertaining. Well, they've got a dark side. Just like a panda. All cuddly and cute until you get close to it and it decides to take a couple of swipes at you.

Security experts (they're called "hackers" by the Examiner but since they're on our side, I don't think it's nice to call them that) at Defcon managed to use the Wii and DS' WiFi connection to upload malware. Not just one way but multiple ways. In fact, the easiest way to do it is through pirated games.

Last week, security experts show how Android apps can obtain information and offload them to remote servers.

In the race to carve out a spot in the expanding mobile frontier, mobile providers, developers, and platform owners are forging ahead without really taking a second look at the bugs and security holes. Why would Apple allow this jail-break bug, which has existed for a long while now, to persist?

My theory is that no one believes the day when hundreds if not thousands of mobile devices can be take over to do the bidding of hackers is here yet. All I can say is, we mobile warriors, have no choice but to be very careful about trusting sources without completely understanding how everything works.

I jail-broke my iPhone and rooted my G1 but if you asked me what exactly I did and how it worked, I can't tell you. I can only hope the iPhone Dev Team and the folks at Cyanogenmod aren't out to create havoc or steal my data. But the day will come when we wake up one morning to see our Android, Blackberry, or Windows device or iPhone performing malicious tasks at the bidding of its new masters.

More at Examiner and Appleinsider.