Stefan Esser brings ASLR to jailbroken iPhones
A computer consultant is embarking where Apple has refused to go, adding a security measure known as ASLR to iPhones to make them more resistant to malware attacks.
Short for address space layout randomization, ASLR has been noticeably absent from all iOS devices since their inception, making possible the types of attacks that commandeered a fully patched iPhone at this year's Pwn2Own hacker contest. By randomizing the memory locations where injected code is executed, ASLR aims to thwart such exploits by making it impossible to know ahead of time where malicious payloads are located.
Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft has baked ASLR into its operating system, and the recently released mobile version of Windows 7 is also endowed with the protection, said Charlie Miller, a principal security analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, who cited private conversations with Microsoft engineers. By comparison, Apple has built only limited ASLR into Mac OS X and has left it out of iOS altogether.
