First iPhone malware makes it into the wild « The BEST Apple Hardware and Software Reviews

Written By Editor November 9th, 2009

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The first known iPhone worm has surfaced in Australia. This worm however is fortunately quite playful – the iPhone’s wallpaper is changed to a picture of Rick Astley (Mr Rick Roll) and nothing malicious is known to happen. The virus only infects jail broken phones but the creator “ikex” has released the source code, as a warning to iPhone users who have jail broken their phones. stating that “people are stupid and should read their phone manuals”.

Forbes – who broke the story – explain the malware.

The payload of that unwelcome program? Not a password-stealing key logger or spam sending software, but a switch of the user’s operating system wallpaper to Astley’s face, along with a message: “ikee is never gonna give you up.” (Astley’s 1987 song of a similar name has been at the center of a viral “rickrolling” Web phenom, in which users trick friends into clicking on a YouTube link to Astley’s hyper-cheesy music video.)

Since the release of the iPhone, security firms have warned that it could garner attention from Cyber criminals thanks to its runaway popularity. In July, Charlie Miller an Apple cyber security expert, managed to hack an iPhone by taking advantage of an SMS exploit. The hack allowed him to control that device and then gain control over other phones. The bug was patched the next day by Apple. [link]

This malware effects a limited number of iPhone users, currently those who have jail broken their iPhones and have not changed their default pass code for a SSH file transfer program.

Forbes discovered the following comment from the creator hidden in the source code:

“People are stupid, and this is to prove it so,” adding that users should read their phones’ manuals.

“It’s not that hard, guys,” ikex writes. “But hey who cares its only your bank details at stake.”

With the source code out in the wild, its almost certain that we’ll see more malware for the iPhone, at least jailbroken ones and most likely they’ll be much more serious. But for now at least official iPhone users need not worry.

Photo Credit: Johan Larsson