As the Apple iPhone, platform gains popularity with its advanced OS and web friendly applications / interface; an old issue with modern computers comes to light: SECURITY. Spyware and Malware have been great issues for the PC industry to tackle (while Mac has been lucky so far?), and we have all reasons to believe that this would be a challenge for the mobile industry aswell.
One reason why I personally ain’t a great fan of too many apps via jailbreaking on the iPhone or the iPod touch wrt to security. Time and again I have highlighted that the security cover that Apple’s wall garden approach provides (perhaps that was the only positive we could see with apps being banned left right and center) but with 1000’s of apps to review, and the reviewers at Apple giving mere minutes to each app isn’t a 100% safe setup. A recent class action lawsuit filed against an iPhone game developer is for a similar reason.
While the case with Storm8 is related to a registered app developer who can be held accountable for actions, there isn’t any such cover available for unauthorized 3rd party apps. A recent iPhone work iKee has been discovered which hijacks your iPhone and changes the wallpaper. The exploit here is exposed by Jailbroken iPhones with SSH installed. This particular worm wouldn’t have affected stock iPhone though. My personal photographs, emails and contacts on a mobile device are invaluable and some silly app installed via untrusted developer can put that to risk.
Apps like Firewall IP looked good to me, but again it comes via the Cydia store; which isn’t really audited or meets any security tests that Apple would impose on an App Store app. However, going ahead the need for such security measures for apps would be necessary.