Apple admits to iPhone 3G flaw

So you’ve just gone and forked out all of your gadget budget to get your hands on the latest and greatest gadget in the world (apparently), the Apple iPhone 3G, and you stupidly left it on the bus (naturally, you had to stop driving your car in order to save enough money to buy the iPhone). Never fear, your average mobile phone has a security pin code feature and you remembered to punch in your goldfish’s birthday as the four digit security code; there’s no way they can access the sensitive information contained in your iPhone right?

Wrong.

The 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 versions of the iPhone’s firmware have a security flaw that allows the phones favourite menu to be accessed. By pressing the emergency call button at the iPhone’s unlock screen, and then two taps of the home menu, hey presto you’re at the favourites menu. Depending on what you have saved in their favourite’s menu determines what potential data thieving scumbags can access on your iPhone.

For the moment there is a workaround iPhone setting that allows the home button to be linked to a password protected home screen, which subsequently loops back to the unlock screen.

Apple has been quick to acknowledge the existence of this rather glaring security flaw and has promised a fix in September. Until the September update the iPhone crowd will have to hang onto their phones a little bit tighter. Ours is padlocked to our ankle. It's a great workout.