Apple patches iOS interception flaw

Apple has patched a vulnerability in the way its latest operating system handled X.509 certificates that could allow for data interception.

Researchers Paul Kehrer for Trustwave SSL and Nicholas Percoco for SpiderLabs discovered a man-in-the-middle attack in which an attacker could craft SSL certificates considered valid by iOS and intercept traffic from applications that utilise the certificate.

The attack would happen without user notification.

"An attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS," Apple said in an advisory.

"Other attacks involving X.509 certificate validation may also be possible. This issue is addressed through improved validation of X.509 certificate chains"

Kehrer and Percoco will present their findings at the Defcon conference in Las vegas.

The vulnerability is just one of several holes that Apple has patched in the lead up to the Defcon and BlackHat conferences which begin next week.

The patch, available through Apple iTunes, was released for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

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