New iPhone anti-phishing feature doesn't work

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A new security feature added to the iPhone and iPod touch simply doesn’t work much of the time, according to a Mac security company.

Apple security specialists at Intego noted on their blog that Apple installed a new anti-phishing feature for mobile Safari in its latest security update.

Similar to a feature found on the desktop version of Safari, it should have warned users that they were visiting a known malicious website. However, after testing the feature, it didn’t work for the company.

The company wrote: “We have extensively tested this feature, tossing dozens of phishing URLs at it, and it simply does not seem to work."

“URLs that are blocked by Safari in Mac OS X open and direct users to malicious pages,” it added.

Intego then got a number of people to test it, and found out that only some people got warnings for malicious sites, while others didn’t.

It said: “We’ve tried isolating locations, iPhone and iPod touch models, and whether they are connecting over a cell network or via Wi-Fi, but all we’ve come up with is that it sometimes works and sometimes it doesn’t."

“This is clearly more dangerous than no protection at all, because if users think they are protected, they are less careful about what they click,” it added.

Apple has not yet replied to request for comment.

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