A recently discovered lockscreen glitch allows anyone to make calls, send SMS messages and access the photo library on a locked phone – appears to affect phones running 4.0.1 and 4.1. Apparently Apple knew about this bug – an Apple spokeswoman told Wired.com that “We’re aware of this issue and we will deliver a fix to customers as part of the iOS 4.2 software update in November.”

How it works:

• Lock your iPhone with a passcode
• Tap Emergency Call
• Enter a non-emergency number such as ###.
• Next tap the call button and immediately hit the lock button.

It should open up the Phone app where you can see all your contacts, call any number, recent call history, send emails, etc. Additionally, if you go to an entry in your address book choose to share a contact via MMS, by tapping the camera icon you can go into the photo library.

Check out the video below:

The flaw recalls a similar bug back in iPhone OS 2.0.2 which allowed you to jump from the Emergency Call screen directly to the Favorites screen of the Phone app by double-tapping the Home button. Email addresses in Favorite contacts then gave access to the Mail app, exposing all your messages.

As usual, the only way around this built-in security hole is to jailbreak your phone. Lockscreen replacements like Android Lock does not seem to be effected by this bug. If you haven’t jailbroken your iDevice yet, you can follow the links below:

• [How To] Jailbreak iPhone/iPodTouch iOS 4.1 With PwnageTool 4.1
• [How To] Jailbreak Apple TV 2G iOS 4.1 With PwnageTool 4.1
• [How To] Jailbreak iOS 4.1/3.22 With Limera1n
• [How To] Jailbreak iOS 4.1/3.2.2 With GreenPois0n

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[Source: MacRumors; 9to5mac]

Authors: _GadgetNews

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