Back to Mobile View

Skip to Content

Ten-Year-Old Hacker presents iOS game exploit at DefCon

by Kelly Hodgkins Aug 8th 2011 at 10:00AM

A 10-year-old hacker who goes by the name CyFi uncovered a new exploit in iOS and Android games. The time-based exploit lets you advance in a game by adjusting the clock on your phone or tablet. The California girl discovered the flaw while playing an unnamed farming game.

Tired of waiting ten hours for some corn to grow, she advanced the device clock ahead and discovered an exploit that forced the game to advance prematurely. Several games are vulnerable, but their names are being withheld so the developers can apply a patch. Though they may be patched, she has reportedly looked into a few tweaks that may get around this fix.

CyFi presented this information to DefCon Kids, a part of the popular DefCon hacking conference dedicated to the budding, young hacker.



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Gaming iOS

A 10-year-old hacker who goes by the name CyFi uncovered a new exploit in iOS and Android games. The time-based exploit lets you...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum Comment Moderation Enabled. Your comment will appear after it is cleared by an editor.

35 Comments

Filter by:
hi blake

Iv been doing this science the app sotre came out, don't give this kid credit for anything, once again me and my friends found out this same exploit years ago!

August 11 2011 at 1:10 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ScandaLeX

This is nothing new. Its been happening on time management games for YEARS!!! and NOT just iOS! Giving this "child" credit for something which is not news or a hack is a joke!

August 09 2011 at 12:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
daewootech

so nothing new then?

August 08 2011 at 8:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jimin1

Everyone has been doing this since the first games launched on the App Store. Anyways, games with good developer rely on a server's clock for time.

August 08 2011 at 4:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to jimin1's comment
Erik Rogers

Or just an absolute timer that runs based on the OS's uptime instead of a system date/time. There are numerous, 'secure' choices for this on iOS. Developers are just lazy and/or uneducated.

August 08 2011 at 11:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
pigmyturnipvole

Basically any game that relies on NSDate to trigger certain events can be manipulated with this method. What do you expect gamers to do, write their own app-specific system clock? It's unlikely that'll ever happen. You'll likely get the same results on other local gaming (not client-server based) platforms.

August 08 2011 at 3:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to pigmyturnipvole's comment
Erik Rogers

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa1398/_index.html

August 08 2011 at 11:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sam

I've been doing this for sooo many years. I don't think that she should be getting all the credit. Google "fish tycoon cheats" and everywhere you go it'll say change the clock ahead. So all she had to do was google cheats for her game and come across that then say she figured an "exploit"

August 08 2011 at 3:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
centrestageblog

I've been doing this for years

August 08 2011 at 2:39 PM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply
Dustin Davis

I knew this trick tomorrow.

August 08 2011 at 2:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
LFK1236

That's not a hack, nor an exploit, it's just a cheap trick. I do the same with Doodle Devil, and I do it with the Fable series on my xbox...

August 08 2011 at 12:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Anthony Lopez

I was doing this "hack" back on the Dreamcast. Who didn't want to wait a full day for their Seaman to advance?

August 08 2011 at 12:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.