Apple's Rotten iPad Security

Recent revelations that AT&T allowed a data breach for more than 100,000 iPad owners, including big-name politicians and business executives, highlights the growing vulnerability of mobile devices.

Experts also warn that special serial numbers exposed along with the email addresses of many iPad owners could be used to attack other security gaps in a wireless network. The serial numbers are for the SIM cards within all mobile devices, and are also known as ICCID numbers. Chris Paget, president and chief technology officer of a Sunnyvale, Calif., computer security firm called H4RDW4RE, told Bloomberg Businessweek that a hacker who grasped the correlation between the ICCID number and a number that creates an International Mobile Subscriber Identity could use the information to pull up a wireless subscriber's name, phone number and approximate location, based on the device's proximity to a cell phone tower.

"I don't want to fear monger, but every time you reveal information that wasn't previously public, it gives hackers an advantage," independent wireless security researcher Nick DePetrillo, told the Washington Post.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and New York Times CEO Janet Robinson were among the prominent figures whose iPads were hacked to expose data.