News

Second Worm Infect iPhone Behave like Botnet

He added although the number of infected phones was thought to be in the hundreds rather than thousands, the worm could jump from phone to phone among owners using the same wi-fi hotspot.

A second worm to hit the iPhone has been unearthed by security company F-Secure.
The handsets at risk also have SSH (secure shell) installed.

Its creator Ashley Towns said he wrote the ikee program in order to raise the issue of iPhone security.

The new worm is more serious than the first because it can behave like a botnet, warns F-Secure.

Many people use SSH so other programs can remotely connect to an iPhone and, among other things, transfer files. It comes with a default password, “alpine” which should be changed.

It redirects the bank’s customers to a lookalike site with a log-in screen.

Users who have installed SSH and not changed the password are especially at risk.

“It’s the second iPhone worm ever and the first that’s clearly malicious – there’s a clear financial motive behind it,” F-Secure research director Mikko Hypponen told the BBC.

This enables the phone to be accessed or controlled remotely without the permission of its owner.

“We are also briefing call centre personnel,” she added. “It’s important to remember that the worm only affects jail-broken phones and it is only aimed at customers in the Netherlands.”

The first iPhone worm, called ikee, was harmless. Users with infected phones found their wallpaper replaced with a picture of 1980s popstar Rick Astley.

The worm attacks “jail-broken” phones – a modification which enables the user to run non-Apple approved software on their handset and also targeted jail-broken phones which were SSH enabled.