Can an iPhone be cloned?

[BradM73]

Just a simple question, but does anyone know if iPhones can be cloned? There was a news story that got one of my friends worried, and now I'm kind of worried about it myself. Thanks.

 

[flyingember]

he means that someone can listen in on your calls, get a copy of your data, etc by making the phone send a copy of the call to a second phone or intercepting the message on a sim card copy or similar. Something very James Bond. It's legit but the chances are infinitely low of it happening to you

you have to fulfill all the requirements below:
1. person is someone worth spying on
2. you meet bad guy who knows you and knows about cloning
3. bad guy has the software and hardware to clone
4. person one has a phone that can be cloned
5. bad guy gets a hold of person's phone AND manages to return it.

Item 5 is the catch. If you don't leave your phone unattended near people you don't trust there's no realistic way you'll be affected.

if you're the type of person who's at risk of espionage you should be very careful with your phone anyways.

 

[BradM73]

Oops, got post sniped.

To Tramian,

No, no, I don't mean if people can make another phone look exactly like an iPhone. I guess you don't know what cell phone cloning is. Cloning is when you copy (otherwise known as cloning) the various serial numbers and carrier signal identifiers within a given cellphone and put them onto another cell phone in order to steal free service on someone else's dime. Basically, you're making a clone of the original phone, and putting it on an iphone or other compatible device in order to steal service. It has nothing to do with making a completely difference device that looks like an iPhone but is actually a piece of poo. lol

Flying,

That's exactly what I'm talking about, but I know that enabled Blue Tooth and Wi-Fi are big open doors for hackers. A group of friends all went to a cell phone hacking convention a while back and they all had their phones hacked over bluetooth I think. The hacks weren't malicious, that they know of, but the hackers were able to send some kind of video file to their phones and play it automatically. I'm just wondering if the iPhone has these same kinds of vulnerabilities.

Check out this website: Mobile Spy - Monitor SMS Text Messages, Call Info and GPS Locations on iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS Smartphones. Spy Software for Monitoring your Cell Phone

It basically says you have complete control over someone else's phone. Even have the ability to activate and listen in on a phone, even if it's "turned off".

 

[flyingember]

Oops, got post sniped.

Flying,

That's exactly what I'm talking about, but I know that enabled Blue Tooth and Wi-Fi are big open doors for hackers. A group of friends all went to a cell phone hacking convention a while back and they all had their phones hacked over bluetooth I think. The hacks weren't malicious, that they know of, but the hackers were able to send some kind of video file to their phones and play it automatically. I'm just wondering if the iPhone has these same kinds of vulnerabilities.

That's a good question. Anything is possible. It's all a matter of if you should worry. At the end of the day any device that has open connections to somewhere else is hackable.

I've heard of the bluetooth thing. It was a known issue and I hope Apple fixed that one. It basically affected a model line of phones which implemented bluetooth poorly.

I could see that one could hack over wifi... but with billions of buildings what's the chance you would walk into the one with an unsecured wifi connection network of the same name as one you have previously connected to, it autoconnects and a hacker is on that network sniffing for iphones who also knows about a hack and your phone stays on the network long enough for them to perform it.

it's a super small number.

Here's the catch at the end of the day. It doubtless has holes but Apple's not telling. Every OS release has had security and bug fixes.

Also, if you jailbreak you're introducing these holes (i.e. opening up ssh). I imagine the stock load is much more secure.

 

[Ipheuria]

Making calls on someone else's line is possible "Ghost lines" that is very old though so may be hard to do now. If you are on any cell phone having a conversation anyone with a scanner can listen to the conversation if they hit the right frequency that's why you should never give credit card or debit card info when you are speaking on a cell or cordless phone. I have had my cell phone cross into someone else's conversation tons of times back when I had a startac. Once when the antennae on my cordless phone broke I used the longer antennae from a RCA car and I could pick up my next door neighbor's conversations all the time. It's what happens when it's wireless so it uses a signal as opposed to hardwired landline. There is a couple threads about hacking into the Iphone through SMS so I'm sure you've seen those.

Also forgot to add if your Iphone is Jailbroken with OpenSSH make sure it's when you're not using it or your phone would be that much easier to get into. You should also change the root password.

 

[flyingember]

anyone with a scanner can listen to the conversation if they hit the right frequency

They encrypt calls.

 

[Ipheuria]

Ahhhh, ok well I was speaking in general sorry for whatever is incorrect.