There’s a awful lot of “could” and “might” floating around in this rumor, readers, so keep a healthy dose of that in mind. MacNN is reporting that a group of iPhone developers has identified a bug in the current iPhone firmware that could lead to an exploit of the Default.png file by a knowledgable programmer/hacker.

A little technical info: Default.png is what’s displayed when an application is launched in the iPhone. Typically it’s a static image (most of the time anyway), but some of Apple’s applications use a dynamic file, which could be fooled into granting access to third party code without your permission or knowledge.

The sources for this rumor have not been revealed, so no need for panic. It could be in the realm of pure “what if?” or even “doesn’t exist”. Plus, as reported here, the iPhone firmware 2.2 is rumored to be released on the 21st. Perhaps it will fix this sort of thing, if it is a vulnerability. Apple is usually diligent about fixing issues like this.

In some ways, it’s actually a shock there haven’t been more issues like this from the very beginning. As usual, being smart about what apps you download and use should keep you safe from any of this kind of thing.