[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

COL. Douglas Macgregor : What happen at the secret meeting between Israel and Russia? The CDC Planned COVID Quarantine Concentration Camps Nationwide NASA staff beg Elon Musk to 'clean house' after agency spent millions of Americans' money on DEI agenda Sanctuaries Freed 22,000 Criminal Aliens Sought by ICE Under Biden "Human Please die": Chatbot responds with threatening message Antifa Groups Recruiting, Organizing And Mobilizing For Violence During Donald Trump's Second Term In Office Joe Biden's "WTH" Moment of the Day with President of Peru..... Germany: Police Raid Pensioner's House, Drag Him To Court After He Retweets Meme Calling Green Minister "Idiot" Israel's Most Advanced Tank Shredded To Pieces In Gaza Chinese Killer Robo Dog Israeli Officials Belatedly Claim Secret Nuclear Site Destroyed In Last Month's Iran Strikes Lake County California Has Counted Just 30 Percent of Votes – Ten Days After Polls Closed! Real Monetary Reform More Young Men Are Now Religious Than Women In The US 0,000+ online influencers, journalists, drive-by media, TV stars and writers work for State Department "Why Are We Hiding It From The Public?" - Five Takeaways From Congressional UFO Hearing Food Additives Exposed: What Lies Beneath America's Food Supply Scott Ritter: Hezbollah OBLITERATES IDF, Netanyahu in deep legal trouble Vivek Ramaswamy says he and Elon Musk are set up for 'mass deportations' of millions of 'unelected bureaucrats' Evidence Points to Voter Fraud in 2024 Wisconsin Senate Race Rickards: Your Trump Investment Guide Pentagon 'Shocked' By Houthi Arsenal, Sophistication Is 'Getting Scary' Cancer Starves When You Eat These Surprising Foods | Dr. William Li Megyn Kelly Gets Fiery About Trump's Choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General Over 100 leftist groups organize coalition to rebuild morale and resist MAGA after Trump win Mainstream Media Cries Foul Over Musk Meeting With Iran Ambassador...On Peace Vaccine Stocks Slide Further After Trump Taps RFK Jr. To Lead HHS; CNN Outraged Do Trump’s picks Rubio, Huckabee signal his approval of West Bank annexation? Pac-Man Barron Trump

Science/Tech
See other Science/Tech Articles

Title: Phone root password cracked in three days
Source: Builder.Au
URL Source: http://www.builderau.com.au/blogs/b ... b/viewblogpost.htm?p=339270810
Published: Jul 3, 2007
Author: Nick Gibson
Post Date: 2007-07-04 20:29:26 by boonie rat
Keywords: None
Views: 73
Comments: 1

Phone root password cracked in three days By Nick Gibson | 2007/07/03 16:56:16

It's been out just three days, but already the Apple iPhone has been taken apart both literally and figuratively. The latest: inquisitive Apple fans have hacked into the firmware and discovered the master root password to the smart phone.

The information came from an an official Apple iPhone restore image (rename as a zip file and extract). The archive contains two .dmg disk images: a password encrypted system image and an unencrypted user image. By delving into the unencrypted image inquisitive hackers were able to discover that all iPhones ship with predefined passwords to the accounts 'mobile' and 'root', the last of which being the name of the privileged administration account on UNIX based systems.

Hackers used the simple UNIX program 'strings' to extract a list of human readable character strings from the disk image, which contained a list of user accounts and their corresponding encrypted passwords (equivalent to the /etc/passwd file on UNIX and Linux systems). A call was then made out on the Full Disclosure mailing list for someone to run the popular password cracking tool John the Ripper on the encrypted passwords.

It took one replier just sixteen seconds to extract the passwords for both accounts -- both passwords were simple six letter words of lower case letters.

Having the passwords will not do anybody any good for the moment. The iPhone has no console or terminal access, so there is no way to log in as either account. In fact, nobody even seems certain that the accounts access the machine at all, some Internet commentators suggesting that the password file was left over from early development work, or was intentionally included to throw hackers off the scent.

Poster Comment:

For Jobs said that the Iphone was good and it shall be good, Amen.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  

#1. To: boonie rat (#0)

Isn't it curious that so many devices, such as the iPhone and routers, are using a unix/linux operating system rather than a proprietary system?

...with the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice.

rack42  posted on  2007-07-04   22:06:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]