Researcher: Email attachments in iOS 7 appear to be unencrypted

Email attachments sent from an iPhone running iOS 7 are not encrypted. That claims a German researcher. Apple says on its website that all email attachments are actually protected.

In his test, Kurtz first configured an imap account on an iPhone 4, which gave him a number of test emails and attachments. He then turned off the phone and granted himself access to the phone’s data. There he found the attachments of the test emails as plain text.

The attachments were available in plain text in iOS 7.0.4, 7.1 and also the most recent version 7.1.1. Kurtz also notes that while he did his original testing with an iPhone 4, he got the same result after several tests with an iPhone 5s and iPad 2 running iOS 7.0.4. Apple’s website states that email attachments are stored encrypted on the iPhone 3GS and all newer Apple products. When Kurtz went to Apple with his discoveries, it turned out that the company was already aware of the problem. Apple did not let Kurtz know when the problem will be solved.