Posts Tagged ‘Security’

The Third iPhone Worm Discovered

November 24th, 2009

Two weeks ago, the first iPhone worm was discovered in Australia, but it was harmless and did nothing except changing the background picture on the iPhone. Then came a new malware attack just a few days later, and today the third iPhone worm is discovered and it can steal your information.

The new worm only affects jailbroken iPhones which the SSH password hasn’t been changed and this worm appears to be isolated in the Netherlands. This worm appears to be far more serious than the first iPhone worm, since it can access and control the iPhone remotely without the permission of its owner. More specifically are those who uses the iPhone for internet banking with Dutch online bank ING at risk, since the worm redirects the bank’s customers to a site that looks like the original log-in screen, but it is fake and the information you give will be stored in a server in Lithuania.

According to The Loop, Apple has issued a brief statement regarding the latest malware attack:

“The worm affects only a very specific set of iPhone users who have jail broken their iPhones and hacked it with unauthorized software,” Apple spokesperson, Natalie Harrison, told The Loop. “As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones, and for good reason. These hacks not only violate the warranty, they will also cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably.”

We at AppleLunch recommends that you stay away from jailbreaks, since it can do more harm than good. The latest worm attacks proves our allegation right.

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Worm Attack on iPhones

November 9th, 2009

It couldn’t last any longer: the first known iPhone worm is loose, but fortunately it only attacks jailbroken iPhones.

It’s the antivirus firm Sophos, who details the worm, which surfaced in Australia last week and affects jailbroken iPhones that have SSH installed without and haven’t changed the default password. If you have an iPhone, purchased in a store and haven’t done anything to it but connecting to iTunes, you can stay calm.

Though the worm is harmless and only changes the background image, it is a sign that in the future, more dangerous attacks on jailbroken iPhones could take place, and the worm also indicates so, since Sophos has found multiple variants, as well as numerous comments within the code that tells the worm is an experiment to draw attention to the risk, faced by users that have jailbroken their iPhones.

Our advice to the readers is not to jailbreak your iPhones. The app store offers you nearly everything that you can imagine, including high security.

Read Sophos’ announcement

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