New update breaks hacked iPhones

Users are reporting that a new update to Apple's iPhone is making previously unlocked iPhones unusable.

The iPhone 1.1.1 update, released Thursday, breaks phones that have been hacked so that they work with providers other than AT&T, the only U.S. provider Apple has allowed to carry its mobile phones.

In recent months, a number of software tools have been developed which allow iPhone users to break free of Apple's AT&T-only restriction, but Apple has said that it would fight any attempts to unlock the iPhone. Earlier this week the company released a warning that unlocked iPhones "will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed."

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Earlier this week, Moore added iPhone hacking capabilities to the Metasploit hacking tool that he develops.

The patch also fixes some cross-site scripting and JavaScript flaws in the browser that could also be serious, Storms said via instant message. These flaws could be exploited to make the browser run unauthorized JavaScript code, he said.

Mobile phone users typically cannot update their own software, but Apple introduced this capability in the iPhone, which uses the update mechanism in the phone's iTunes music player.

iTunes checks for these updates once per week, so it may take up to seven days for all iPhone users to see these updates. Apple advises users to install the update immediately.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.