Buzzin Mobiles

Once again the Apple iPhone 4 is all over the press for the wrong reasons, it is claimed today that the top selling smartphone could be vulnerable to exploitation by remote hackers, although the threat at present only exists on paper.

The problem it appears is in the way that Apple’s Mobile Safari handles Adobe PDF documents, as the browser is designed to automatically open such files, there are fears that a hacker could embed a malicious code in the file.

Apple say that the company is well aware of the reports and the threat involved and are currently investigating the problem.

Mobile experts have suggested that the only way of preventing Mobile Safari from automatically opening PDF files is by jailbreaking a phone and installing an application, called PDF Loading Warner, that then asks for permission every time the browser tries to open a PDF file.

Some have even suggested installing an alternative browser such as the much lauded Opera Mini, although no-one can be clear on whether this would solve the problem completely as they had not been checked for exploits.

Apple too have been slow to fix problems with products such as Safari. There have been multiple versions of Safari upgraded for both Mac OSX and Microsoft due to significant browser problems. While Apple has made progress, the Windows version for PC notebooks (or otherwise), still lags behind at least four other products including Google Chrome and Firefox.

It opens up the debate as to whether smartphones would benefit from having their own security or anti virus programme in place, many have argued that there is no need for such measures with the current OS that are being used.

Although I am not an expert on internet security we are warned on a daily basis of the vulnerability of our PCs to attacks and to this end there are numerous free antivirus downloads for computers.

While there are now some anti virus software developed for mobile devices, there does seem a split in opinion as to whether mobile users actually need such programmes.

It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has their own experiences on this subject.