There's a first time for everything, and over the weekend the iPhone got an unwelcome first: an "in the wild" worm, which (luckily for most of us) can only crawl its way into jailbroken iPhones. But before you panic, know that the "ikee" worm appears to be more of a prank—and a warning—than a real threat.
Forbes.com reports that the worm, dubbed "ikee," was found nesting in jailbroken iPhones in Australia by security research firms Sophos and F-Secure. (A "jailbroken" iPhone that's been unlocked or otherwise hacked; if you don't know what a jailbroken iPhone is, you probably don't have one, so relax.)
The "ikee" worm doesn't do anything all that malicious, according to this F-Secure blog post; it won't take over your iPhone and/or steal all your data.
Instead, the worm simply changes your iPhone wallpaper to a picture of ... 80's pop singer Rick Astley, along with the caption, "ikee is never gonna give you up." And that's pretty much it.
Indeed, as Forbes.com notes, the coder behind the "ikee" worm seems more intent on warning iPhone jailbreakers about taking proper security precautions than causing any real damage.
Update: ABC News (that's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not the ABC TV network in the States) has an interview with a 21-year-old student who claims to be the author of the "ikee" worm. Ashley Towns told the ABC reporter that "ikee" is "not malicious and is not out to hurt people," and that he's "just poking fun and hoping waking [sic] people up a little." Check out the full story right here.
"Ikee" is the first iPhone worm to be discovered, and from the sound of the latest reports, it appears it hasn't been spotted outside of Australia.
iPhone users worldwide got a scare during the summer after security experts found a way to remotely take over an iPhone by simply sending a series of malicious text messages. (Windows Mobile and Android phones were also vulnerable to the attack). Luckily, phone manufacturers (including Apple) quickly issued security patches, and no "in the wild" SMS attacks were ever documented.
So, what's the best way to protect your jailbroken iPhone against the likes of "ikee"? Well, the worm apparently will only work with the owner of a hacked iPhone hasn't bothered to change their default password for SSH (a service that allows for file transfers between networked devices). F-Secure has instructions for changing your SSH password here (and again, if you don't have a jailbroken iPhone, you don't have SSH installed, so don't bother).
