Security

Rumors of facial recognition technology coming to the iPhone have been swirling around for years. Apple purchased Polar Rose almost four years ago, and patents filed even before the acquisition point towards development work in this vein. For those who are looking to add this biometric security feature to their iOS devices now, the jailbreak tweak Appellancy fits the bill.

Once installed, Appellancy adds an app to the home screen. Here the user can capture multiple images to be used in the facial recognition process that unlocks the device. A higher number of photos will improve security, but this can also slow down recognition. More than one face can be stored, allowing multiple people to unlock the iPhone with their visage.

The jailbreak community has responded to the latest security research by Andreas Kurtz, who claims to have found a mail attachment encryption bug in iOS 7.0.4 and later. The problem arises when mail attachments are stored locally in an iOS mail folder. These files are not encrypted, making them accessible through the file system.

Of course, for this bug to threaten important data the iOS user must be receiving and storing critical information in mail attachments in an IMAP folder on the device. Furthermore, it sounds like the only way to access the unencrypted files is via access to the iOS device itself. In any case Apple has been notified of the problem by Kurtz and is currently working on a fix.

When it comes to security concerns, the Heartbleed security flaw is currently dominating headlines everywhere. The good news is that iOS devices are not vulnerable to Heartbleed. Regardless of this fact, setting a passcode is the first step in securing personal information on the iPhone from prying eyes.

Simple passcodes are convenient to use, but limited to a four-digit number. For those looking to beef up the security of their iOS devices, replacing these four digits with a complex passcode will help. Once activated, this feature allows numbers, letters and special characters to be used, vastly improving the strength of the passcode. A long string or several words strung together can be used, locking down an iOS device at the specified time interval.

If James Bond had an iPhone, he'd be using Wickr. Secret messaging between iOS devices has been around for some time, with apps such as Black SMS which encrypt messages to keep them private. Now a free app known as Wickr has taken the concept to a new level.

Not only does Wickr encrypt messages in transit, keeping them away from prying eyes, but the app actually is capable of sending self-destructing messages with a limited lifespan. After these messages are received, they are securely erased from the recipient's iOS device based on the sender's instructions.