The First iPhone Virus Targets Unsecured Jailbroken iPhone

In the previous post, I urged every jailbroken iPhone user to change the root password to avoid any malicious attack via SSH. Yesterday, it’s reported widely in the blogsphere that the world’s first iPhone virus debuts. And this virus targets to infect those unsecured jailbroken iPhones with SSH enabled and which are still using the default root password (i.e. alpine).

Despite it’s classified as a virus, it does not do any harm on the infected iPhone. The worm only changes the home screen wallpaper to an image of 1980s pop star Rick Astley and displays the message “Ikee is never gonna give you up”. Then it starts to replicate itself by looking up other vulnerable iPhone around. This process goes on and on.

The virus is created by an Australian hacker, as he told ABC online. The hacker mentioned the primary purpose of the virus is to raise the issue of iPhone security. Other than changing the wallpaper of home screen, the virus does not come with any malicious intent. But as he said, the virus can actually do anything as it already gains the root access:

“I think to raise awareness for one, somebody with more malicious intent could have done anything – read your SMSs, go through your emails, view your contacts, photos – anything,”

Is spreading a virus the best way to raise every iPhone users’ awareness of security? I don’t think so. But this virus does generate lots of attention and covered widely around the Internet.