SpyPhone Demonstrates How iPhone Apps Collect Personal Data

Developer Nicholas Seriot has created an iPhone app to show how vulnerable iPhones are to malicious apps that seek to harvest personal data.

“The application, called SpyPhone, uses the public iPhone API that Apple made available for application developers, and does not need any exploits or hardware attacks in order to access the iPhone’s data,” writes threatpost’s Dennis Fisher. “Instead, SpyPhone relies on using the iPhone’s usability and depth of features to its advantage. Once an application is on an iPhone, it has unfettered access to much of the data and settings on the device.”

“Seriot has posted the source code for SpyPhone online and gave a talk about SpyPhone’s capabilities at a security conference this week,” Fisher writes.