iOS PDF Exploit Requires Jailbreak on Older gen iPhone

Apple [AAPL] released iOS 4.0.2 and iOS 3.2.2 to fix the PDS flaw in the iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4, iPod touch (newer generations) and the iPad. This problem has it’s good and bad sides. The good side is that once upgrading you are safe from any malicious exploits, but on the down side, the iPhone jailbreak doesn’t work any more if you upgrade.

One other problem is for those who own early generation iPhone hardware that cannot upgrade to iOS 4 and specifically 4.0.2. The older iPhone is still prone to this attack. Apple hasn’t made a fix for the people who own the older iPhone which leaves them a little open to attack.

To make your original iPhone safe you’ll need to jailbreak it which is kind of ironic. Once jailbroken a new app can be downloaded via Cydia that seals the security hole and essentially adds the same protection that iOS 4.0.2 adds.

It isn’t clear if Apple has any intention of sealing the security hole found on older generation iPhones, so you’ll need to either jailbreak or wait and take the risk of being attacked. Right now it isn’t known if any malicious code is out there specifically targeting the PDF flaw, but with Comex releasing the jailbreak source code yesterday it already appears that hackers are hard at work to use Comex’s work for bad things.

The fix is installable via Cydia itself now (search for ‘PDF Patch). To test that it’s working properly, visit jailbreakme.com again. After you slide to jailbreak, you should no longer see a dialog box pop up (you’ll just see the star background). That means you’re no longer vulnerable!

Via: iPhone Dev

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