Alleged flaws in Apple’s operating system could be exploited by hackers, potentially compromising personal data on its devices

Apple iPhone family

Serial hacker Charlie Miller will reportedly reveal how he cracked Apple’s normally secure operating system at a conference in Taiwan next week.

IT security vendor Cryptzone warns that a revelation like this might open the door to other hackers intent on subverting the security of iPhones, iPads and Apple Mac computers.

“Now that the cybercriminal community knows that it is possible to compromise iTunes and the iOS platform, you can guess what is going to happen,” Cryptzone vice president Grant Taylor said.

“Apple will be burning the midnight oil to work out how to beat this potentially serious compromise of the iOS platform, but I suspect a simple patch may not be enough to solve this security issue,” added Taylor.

Miller is understood to be planning to reveal how to exploit a flaw in Apple’s code. Normally the code only allows Apple approved aplications to run on its devices.

Miller told Forbes, “Now you could have a program in the App Store like Angry Birds that can run new code on your phone that Apple never had a chance to check. With this bug, you can’t be assured of anything you download from the App Store behaving nicely.”

Apple terminated Miller’s developer license shortly after he revealed details of his research.