iPhone
Fear as Rick Astley Worm
Spreads in Australia
An Australian
student sparked fears of
a new era of computer viruses
on Tuesday after creating
a worm which infects Apple’s
iconic iPhone with pictures
of 1980s pop star Rick Astley.
Ashley Towns, 21, who lives
with his family near Sydney,
said he was trying to raise
security awareness with
his cheeky but harmless
“Ikee” worm,
which spreads from phone
to phone along wireless
networks.
“This
virus pretty much exploits
people’s laziness
to change their password,”
he said, according to public
broadcaster ABC.
iPhone
Fear
Somebody with
more malicious intent could
have done anything —
read your SMSs, go through
your emails, view your contacts,
photos — anything,”
he added.
The virus
swaps the smartphone’s
wallpaper with an image
of Astley and the words
“Ikee is never gonna
give you up” —
a reference to the British
star Astley’s 1987
chart-topper: “Never
Gonna Give You Up”.
It affects
only phones that have been
modified, or jail-broken,
to install applications
not approved by manufacturer
Apple, and can easily be
deleted.
But experts
warned Towns, among the
first in the world to hack
into the popular iPhone,
may have caught the attention
of cyber-criminals wanting
to steal personal information
such as bank details.
“We
would view this as a very
serious development,”
Peter Coroneos, chief executive
of Australia’s Internet
Industry Association, told
AFP.
“This
should raise awareness of
viruses and that people
should not regard cellphones
as being any more secure
than computers.”
Towns, a technical
college student now reportedly
the target for work at software
firms, said he had proved
it was not hard to hack
into an iPhone and was not
aware if he had broken any
laws.
The worm taps
into the popular “Rickrolling”
Internet phenomenon, where
clicks on booby-trapped
web links take unwitting
users to video footage of
Astley performing “Never
Gonna Give You Up”.
iPhone
Fear In Australia
The virus
itself is not malicious
and is not out to hurt people.
It’s just poking fun
and hopefully waking people
up a little, Towns said.
“When
people jail-break their
phone, it allows them to
install a service on their
phone called SSH. Generally
you should always change
your password after setting
up on the iPhone as all
iPhones use the same password.
Kevin Haley,
director of product management
at anti-virus firm Symantec,
said it was only a matter
of time before “bad
guys” tried to imitate
Towns by hacking the iPhone.
When the cyber-criminals
see there’s anything
worth hacking, they try
to start finding out ways
of doing that,” he
said.
It’s
a little like waving a red
flag and saying, hey, there
are possibilities here.
Apple warned
customers against jail-breaking
their iPhones and gave reassurances
that only devices modified
with “unauthorised
software” were vulnerable.
As we’ve
said before, the vast majority
of customers do not jail-break
their iPhones, and for good
reason, the company said
in a statement given to
to AFP.
These hacks
not only violate the warranty,
they will also cause the
iPhone to become unstable
and not work reliably.
