Security

With the recent news of celebrity photos being hacked and distributed around the web, iCloud and Photo Stream users everywhere are considering their own account security. While the hack was not a result of iCloud servers being breached, accounts without 2-step verification and other protective measures can easily be compromised.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently increased the security measures available to iCloud users. One sure-fire step to prevent photo leaks is to turn off Photo Stream entirely and remove personal content from iCloud. For those who wish to continue using iCloud services, 2-step verification (or two-factor verification) is an essential part of securing your account.

PanicLock is a jailbreak tweak that brings a new layer of security to iOS devices. With panicLock installed, an Activator gesture can be configured to lock access to all apps. This means that even if there is no passcode set, or someone knows the passcode, apps can be locked out completely.

The secret gesture is selected from Settings -> panicLock -> Activation Methods. Once panicLock is installed and configured, performing the secret gesture blocks access to all iOS apps immediately. To disable the lock, invoke the secret gesture a second time.

Rumors of facial recognition technology coming to the iPhone have been swirling around for years. Apple purchased Polar Rose almost four years ago, and patents filed even before the acquisition point towards development work in this vein. For those who are looking to add this biometric security feature to their iOS devices now, the jailbreak tweak Appellancy fits the bill.

Once installed, Appellancy adds an app to the home screen. Here the user can capture multiple images to be used in the facial recognition process that unlocks the device. A higher number of photos will improve security, but this can also slow down recognition. More than one face can be stored, allowing multiple people to unlock the iPhone with their visage.

The jailbreak community has responded to the latest security research by Andreas Kurtz, who claims to have found a mail attachment encryption bug in iOS 7.0.4 and later. The problem arises when mail attachments are stored locally in an iOS mail folder. These files are not encrypted, making them accessible through the file system.

Of course, for this bug to threaten important data the iOS user must be receiving and storing critical information in mail attachments in an IMAP folder on the device. Furthermore, it sounds like the only way to access the unencrypted files is via access to the iOS device itself. In any case Apple has been notified of the problem by Kurtz and is currently working on a fix.

When it comes to security concerns, the Heartbleed security flaw is currently dominating headlines everywhere. The good news is that iOS devices are not vulnerable to Heartbleed. Regardless of this fact, setting a passcode is the first step in securing personal information on the iPhone from prying eyes.

Simple passcodes are convenient to use, but limited to a four-digit number. For those looking to beef up the security of their iOS devices, replacing these four digits with a complex passcode will help. Once activated, this feature allows numbers, letters and special characters to be used, vastly improving the strength of the passcode. A long string or several words strung together can be used, locking down an iOS device at the specified time interval.