1 in 3 iPhone users do not apply patches

Almost two-thirds of Apple iPhone users connect their devices to a computer running iTunes at least once a week.

In a survey seeking to discover how many iPhone users actually connect their devices to the software in order to apply updates and patches, Randy Abrams, director of technical education at ESET, mentioned the recent Apple patch for the iPhone operating system.

He said: “This fixes some pretty serious vulnerabilities, but you must connect your iPhone to a computer and run iTunes to update the iPhone. This led me to start wondering how many iPhone users rarely connect their iPhones to a computer?

“I suspect there are quite a few people who rarely connect their iPhone to a computer and that could be a serious problem in the future. Because some of these vulnerabilities can lead to arbitrary code execution, it would be difficult to rule out an iPhone worm.”

After the survey was closed, 62.5 per cent reported connecting their iPhones to a computer running iTunes at least once a week, 20.8 per cent reported connecting at least once a month, 12.5 per cent reported less frequently than monthly, but at least every two months, while 4.2 per cent connected less than once every two months.

Abrams said: “As I expected most readers here tend to connect their iPhones frequently enough that they aren't at risk of missing critical OS patches for their devices. It would be interesting to see how this stacks up against the average user who doesn't read security blogs.”

See original article on scmagazineuk.com