It was recently revealed that the messaging service in the iOS is not as safe as thought and it was pretty easy to send a message posing to be from another number. Apple suggested an alternate to the problem, which was to use the iMessage service instead of regular SMS. This reply was met with severe criticism as the company was seen to be avoiding the problem rather than solving it and instead was trying to promote its own service. It was inevitable that this issue would be compared to the existing services in Blackberry OS and Android. AdaptiveMobile, a mobile security firm undertook the task of comparing the various platforms and it has emerged that Android and Blackberry OS are superior to Apple’s proprietary one in this respect.
It is evident that Apple has left this loophole in the system which is a remnant of the way messages used to work a while ago. The reply address field used to be available to offer better interaction with information broadcasting services but it is overridden by most handsets and the Android and Blackberry platforms account for this. AdaptiveMobile says that the field is usually taken to be correct by most handsets and hence they don’t offer users the option to mess with it. Apple on the other hand seems to have overlooked the problem.
The repercussions of this glitch could be quite profound as it enables hackers and users with fraudulent intents to pose as banks or other services and extract confidential information. AdaptiveMobile is of the opinion that this incident shows how critical security is to the mobile phone and that collaboration between manufacturers, network providers and security services is essential to develop a foolproof phone and maintain the security of services as important as SMS.
Apple did have a response to the problem but it was no good, to put bluntly. It said that security is very important and a major concern and recommended the use of the iMessage service which verifies the user addresses that protects against incidents like this. It is unclear whether Apple is going to solve the problem or continue to pretend that the iMessage, which is available only for iPhone, iPod and iPad is the answer. SMS is one service that most users will probably not compromise on and it is in Apple’s best interests to work it out.
