Ok, lucky it does not look like an Apple Charger, so really the mainstream media is just going overboard in reporting this news, and personally I think it is going to give nice little embedded boards like this one a bad name, just because a group decides to use it for their upcoming BlackHat demo on how they can upload code into an Apple iOS device via its 'charging cable', which we all know is alot more then just used for 'charging the device', even Apple themselves uses it to restore and update the firmware via your legit iTunes app.
According to the researchers, "all users" are at risk, as the hack doesn't require any user interaction. Hackers are even capable of hiding the applications, so they don't show up in the device's app list.
It's not clear if the charger is able to upload malicious code - Apple's iOS devices, by default, are "sandboxed" and will only install and run properly signed apps - but this is a worrying development regardless.
The charger itself is fairly large - it's based on the BeagleBone, a tiny Linux PC the size of a credit card - so it's unlikely to be able to be scaled down to fit in a regular iPhone or iPad charger casing anytime soon.
The hack and charger will be demonstrated at the Black Hat security conference in July.
I mean really 'mainstream media', this is just an 'tethered jailbreak' using a embedded pc, instead of your big desktop running an app, and instead of just 'jailbreaking', they going to upload some 'bad code' afterwards, big deal that could be done with any 'jailbreak' program on your PC just modified it a bit, instead of going to the lengths of calling this an 'modified charger'.
Move along folks, nothing to see here, just more fear-mongering regarding 'hackers' and those tiny non-normal development boards!
Source: Maxconsole
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