A recent development has revealed that the lockscreen on iOS 6.1 can be easily bypassed with a few simple presses. This new exploit, discovered by a user and widely described in a YouTube video, does not require any form of software or access to a computer: indeed, all it needs is the crucial vulnerability allegedly already present on iOS 6.1, affecting the Phone app on the iPhone. 

The process itself is quite cumbersome, yet it boils down to a few simple steps. As an iPhone owner, we’re not going to get into the specifics of how you can violate someone’s privacy, but in case you are locked out of your iPhone, a quick Google search should turn up the video fairly easily. The bypassing of the lockscreen can be seen as a major debacle for Apple, and even more so for iOS 6.1 given that it also broke 3G connectivity for some iPhone 4S users in Europe. 

The company last night responded to the lockscreen loophole reports, saying: “We are aware of this issue, and will deliver a fix in a future software update.” Interestingly, this isn’t the first time such a loophole has been found on an iOS device. iOS 4.1 was plagued with the same issue and last year, a similar exploit surfaced which utilized the camera access feature on the lockscreen.