iOS 7 Lockscreen bug exposes Apple devices to security risks

iOS 7 vulnerability lets ill-intentioned with physical access to bypass iPhone’s Lockscreen to access mobile.

Jose Rodriguez has found a lock screen vulnerability in iOS 7, last version of popular Apple mobile OS system. Mr Rodriguez is a 36 year old soldier living in Spain’s Canary Islands, has found a security vulnerability in iOS 7 that allows to bypass lockscreen rapidly to access user’s email, photos, social media like Twitter, and much more.

Rodriguez has demonstrated how to exploit the iOS 7 vulnerability in a video to my friend and colleague Mohit Kumar, founder of the popular security portal The Hacker News.

Similar vulnerabilities were found in the past version of the popular OS, exploiting lockscreen iOS 7 vulnerability the attackers could have direct access to the iPhone or iPad.

To have an idea of various flaws that affected Apple products I suggest you to read the security advisory proposed by Secunia firm. Multiple weaknesses have been reported in Apple iOS during last months, the flaws can be exploited by ill-intentioned with physical access to bypass certain security restrictions and by malicious people to disclose sensitive information, conduct brute-force, spoofing, and cross-site scripting attacks, bypass certain security restrictions, cause a DoS (Denial of Service), and compromise a vulnerable device.

Apple revealed that the new iOS 7 has fixed numerous security vulnerabilities, including the lockscreen bug in iOS 6.1.3 discovered also by Rodriguez. The iOS7 vulnerability interested users who lock devices using the PIN code or password, following a summary of the procedure to exploit the security flaw:

Swipe up from the bottom of the Lock screen to open Control Center and Launch the Clock app.
Open the Alarm Clock section of the Clock app and Hold down the power button.
Quickly tap Cancel the immediately double-click the Home button and Hold down for a bit longer on the second click.
From here you can access the camera and stored photos. You can share these photos on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or via email.

The exploit has been successfully verified on iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, and 5S, and iPad running iOS 7, waiting for the official fix from Apple users can disable the control center of the lock screen in their device settings.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – iOS 7, hacking)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.