tech

No Jailbreaking Needed, Just This Charger to Hack the iPhone

Most people have heard of malicious software as a way to hack into an iPhone, but what about a malicious charger? Three researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology say they have come up with a proof-of-concept malicious iPhone charger that lets them hack into the mobile device running the latest version of Apple's iOS in less than one minute. No jailbreaking required.

By subodhjain — 12 Jun 2013, 12:48 PM — Updated almost 11 years ago

Cover image via

VIDEOS: How an iPhone charger opens your phone to hackers

multple charger in 1 USB port.. ohsem :)

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It looks like a charger, smells like a charger and tastes like a charger, but it's not just a charger

A team of researchers from Georgia Tech say they’ve discovered, and can demonstrate, a way to hack into an iPhone or iPad in less than a minute using a “malicious charger.”

The device connects to an iPhone via a USB slot. It looks like a charger, smells like a charger and tastes like a charger, but its mission is to infect an iPhone with malicious software, which it can do within a minute by attacking the iPhone’s iOS operating system.

It seems accepting a stranger’s charger at an event is gearing up to be like accepting a drink from a stranger at a party — not a good idea. Of course, there are currently some limitations.

Details are-fortunately!-scant about exactly how the device works, but the researchers claim that it can compromise iOS in under a minute

In the Black Hat conference preview, the researchers said they constructed an "innocent-looking" malicious USB charger with readily available computer technology. They call their charger Mactans, taken from Latrodectus mactans, or the black widow spider.

''We have notified Apple of the specifics of our work and wish to give the company adequate time to consider our findings,'' the college said.

"Apple iOS devices are considered by many to be more secure than other mobile offerings. In evaluating this belief, we investigated the extent to which security threats were considered when performing everyday activities such as charging a device," the researchers wrote

Worrying implications: Initial Compromises with the hardware and the design

The charger itself is fairly large — it's based on the BeagleBone, a tiny Linux PC the size of a credit card — so it's unlikely to be able to be scaled down to fit in a regular iPhone or iPad charger casing anytime soon

...the moral of the story is not to be promiscuous with your iPhone and iPad charging, at least until the details of the hack are released next month.

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What researchers are saying about initial hardware components

"This hardware was selected to demonstrate the ease with which innocent-looking, malicious USB chargers can be constructed."

While Mactans was built with limited amount of time and a small budget, we also briefly consider what more motivated, well-funded adversaries could accomplish.

Image via cnet.co.uk

“The results were alarming: Despite the plethora of defense mechanisms in iOS, we successfully injected arbitrary software into current-generation Apple devices running the latest operating system [OS] software. All users are affected, as our approach requires neither

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