First “Virus” reported for iPhone
In this day and age of viruses and a society in which a minor component dedicate themselves to spoiling good things for other people, someone has finally inserted a “Virus” into the iPhone series.
While the “virus” is, reportedly, little more than a prank, can access only “jailbroken” iPhones and, to date, has only reported from Australia, it’s effect is relatively trivial. It is the significance, however, that is very …., well, significant.
A “jailbroken” iPhone is one which has been “hacked” usually by, or on behalf of, the owner and the jailbrokwn iPhone susceptible to the “ikee” worm are those in which the SSH default password was not changed.
The worm, apparently, does nothing more than change the users wallpaper to an image of Rick Astley (an 80’s era pop singer), with the accompanying message “ikee is never gonna give you up”. Again, nothing too serious but it serves a s a warning that jailbroken iPhones may have a security weakness. Furthermore, there were reports earlier this summer that iPhones might be susceptible to remote takeover through a series of mailicious text messages. Apple subsequently issued a security patch (so keep your iPhone current with the latest software updates through iTunes.
Further information on the ikee worm is available here and here.
Tags: ikee, ikee worm, iPhone, iTunes, prank, virus, worm
