Germany warns about Apple's insecurity

THE GERMAN REPUBLIC has had it with Apple shipping out gear with dodgy security and has issued a statement warning Apple Iphone 4 users that the company's trademark rubber band is not protection against viruses.

The Federal Office for Information Security (FOIS), which has already claimed the scalp of Internet Explorer in Europe by suggesting that people use Firefox instead, has said that several versions of Apple's Iphone, Ipad, and Ipod Touch have potentially serious security problems.

It said that Apple's IOS operating system has "two critical weak points for which no patch exists."

The first is a hole that means that opening a poisoned website or a PDF file could allow criminals to spy on passwords, planners, photos, text messages, e-mails and even listen in to phone conversations.

It is nothing to do with the PDF standard but everything to do with the genius way Apple's IOS software has been designed, the FOIS said.

At the moment the watchdog has not got to the point where it warns people not to buy Apple gear. It is just saying that people should only visit trustworthy websites until Jobs' Mob publishes a software update.

Apple in Germany is quoted by CBS News as saying that the company is looking into the matter. After all it does not want users to suffer and Apple just built some more stores for them to buy more magical products.

But the FOIS seemed to indicate there is a sense of urgency that Jobs Mob might not appreciate. It said that while no attacks have been observed yet they were likely to appear soon. It is more worried about the handful of corporations that might have given hackers a direct line to their company secrets by using Apple hardware on their networks.

The warning relates to Iphones using IOS versions 3.1.2-4.0.1., Ipads using iOS 3.2-3.2.1 and Ipod Touch units using IOS 3.1.2.-4.0. It said that it was possible but not clear whether older IOS versions could also be affected. µ