Last year, I wrote an article for this site entitled “Welcome to the party Mac..” where I tried to dispel the common myth that Apple computers were impervious to malware and viral infections.  My argument called the Apple platform “small potatoes” because up until the past year or two, Apple systems did not have enough market share for virus writers to focus their efforts on compromising Apple’s operating systems for profit.

With the proliferation of the iPod, iPhone and now the iPad, the “curse of popularity” now afflicts Apple’s iOS.  Gizmodo is reporting on a new exploit that allows a hacker to gain total control of your Apple device by loading a compromised PDF file:

Right now, if you visit a web page and load a simple PDF file, you may give total control of your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to a hacker. The security bug affects all devices running iOS 3.1.2 and higher.

This security threat is particularly scary because all that is needed to infect an iOS device is a link to the PDF.  No user interaction is required other than following a link or being redirected to a “malicious” PDF file.

Safeguard yourself by keeping on top of this issue and making sure that you keep your iOS devices updated with the latest security patches.  It is unclear when Apple is going to be addressing this particular issue, but it is my hope that they don’t hold another press conference (ala’ the iPhone 4 antenna debacle) and decide to spend most of the time blaming Adobe for the problem ;)