Lessons for SmartPhone Developers

Coming after Apple/iPad/AT&T email leak is this interesting article from the Denim Group:

June 09, 2010

4 Lessons from the AT&T/Apple Data Breach for Smartphone App Developers

By Dan Cornell

The recent AT&T / Apple data breach involving iPad 3G customers echoes some lessons we’ve been discussing with our customers deploying smartphone applications.  Based on a read of the info from Goatse Security as reported by Gawker we see similar themes.

In summary the author lists:

• Authentication and Authorization Are Crucial for Services Deployed to Support Smartphone Applications
• Do Not Authenticate Requests with Values that Look Random But Aren’t
• Never Trust Anything in an Attacker-Controlled Request (Especially User-Agent Headers)
• Don’t Trust Your Service Providers; Test Them

It is written with more of a focus on security, but the technical aspects are correct for this situation. However going deeper from here the whole issue of privacy is much greater than just the application of security. I sound like Schneier.

iPad Owner Email Leak

Extremely serious privacy breaches at Apple proving once again that people just don't understand privacy.

AT&T's Gaping Hole Exposes 114,000 iPad 3G Buyers' Email Addresses
Jason Mick (Blog) - June 9, 2010 5:55 PM

In what is one of the biggest leaks of email addresses in recent history, a group called Goatse Security has published the personal email addresses of 114,067 iPad 3G purchasers according to Gawker. The email addresses were obtained in what appears to be a legal fashion by querying a public interface that AT&T accidentally left exposed.

Apple's Worst Security Breach: 114,000 iPad Owners Exposed

Apple has suffered another embarrassment. A security breach has exposed iPad owners including dozens of CEOs, military officials, and top politicians. They—and every other buyer of the cellular-enabled tablet—could be vulnerable to spam marketing and malicious hacking

Will it blend? The ipad...

The Apple "iSanitaryPad" ....

This mixed reviews here, to me it sounds like some kind of "feminine sanitary product"... but I'm sure the Apple fanboyz well tell otherwise.

Seems like someone else also had the same idea given the products name....watch here (not for the overly sensitive or Apple fanboyz)