The first worm aimed at the iPhone has appeared. The worm is described as mostly innocuous, initially targeting unsecure jailbroken iPhones in Austrialia.
The worm’s creator, a hacker identified as “ikex” switches your wallpaper for an image of Rick Astley, a 1980-era pop star. Astley, who sang the 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” may be better known for the Internet prank known as “Rickrolling.” The bait-and-switch replaces an ordinary video with one of Astley.
In the iPhone’s case, the hacker displays “ikex is never gonna give you up,” followed by comment’s in the worm’s source code urging people to upgrade their phone’s security.
“The world’s first iPhone worm is hardly a true criminal exploit,” according to Forbes. “Instead, it seems to be half warning, half prank.” In the source code, the hacker wrote: “People are stupid, and this is to prove it so.” The worm affects only iPhones using the default SSH password allowing phone-to-phone file transfers.
Although this version was deemed harmless, such may not be the case for variants produced from the released source code. “They might have a nastier payload than just changing your wallpaper or might try password-cracking to gain access to devices where the default password has been changed,said Mike Hyponen, a researcher with F-Secure.
This summer another iPhone exploit was discovered by security researcher Charlie Miller which used the handset’s ability to send binary code via SMS, potentially turning the Apple devices into a gateway for access to the phone’s camera, dialer, messaging and Safari.
This latest security report comes just days after news that Apple is seeking a new security head for the iPhone platform. The Cupertino, Calif. company posted ads on its Web site looking for “a very technical and hands-on leader, someone with a passion for understanding security exploits and coming up with innovative methods to create secure platforms.”
[Via Forbes and AppleInsider]
