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View Full Version : World’s First iPhone Worm Hits iPhone Owners In Australia



thelostone
09-11-2009, 03:09 PM
The attacks, which researchers say are the world’s first iPhone worm in the wild, target jailbroken iPhones that have SSH software installed and keep Apple’s default root password of “alpine.” In addition to showing a well-coiffed picture of Astley, the new wallpaper displays the message “ikee is never going to give you up,” a play on Astley’s saccharine addled 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
A review of some of the source code, shows that the malware, once installed, searches the mobile phone network for other vulnerable iPhones and when it finds one, copies itself to them using the the default password and SSH, a Unix application also known as secure shell. People posting to this thread on Australian discussion forum Whirlpool first reported being hit on Friday.
“I foolishly had forgot to change my root and user password last time i had jailbroke my phone,” wrote one forum participant. In addition to his own iPhone being attacked, he said a flatmate’s iPhone 3G was also sullied with the image of Astley. Users who tried to delete the image were chagrined to find it reappear once they rebooted their device.
The attack is a wakeup call for anyone who takes the time to jailbreak an iPhone. While the hack greatly expands the capabilities of the Apple smartphone, it can also make it more vulnerable. Programs such as OpenSSH, which can only be installed after iPhones have undergone the procedure, can be extremely useful, but if owners haven’t bothered to change their root password, the programs also represent a gaping hole waiting to be exploited.
Indeed, a hacker going by the moniker ikee and claiming to be responsible for the worm said here that he wrote the program to bring awareness to the widely followed practice of failing to change the iPhone’s password.
“I was quite amazed by the number of people who didn’t RTFM and change their default passwords,” the unidentified worm writer said. “I admit I probably pissed off a few people, but it was all in good fun (well ok for me anyway).”
Ikee said the worm disables the SSH daemon so it can’t be targeted further.
So far, there are no reports of people outside of Australia getting infected. And the attack appears to do nothing more than Rickroll victims with the Astley wallpaper. But because the writer released source code for four separate variants, it wouldn’t be surprising for copycats in other regions to appropriate the attack code and potentially imbue it with more malicious payloads

pande_monium
17-11-2009, 03:28 PM
This is done by sneaking past the jailbreak for iPhones which have the default password.

Its strongly recommended to change your SSH password by following the instructions



Install MobileTerminal & launch it


Cydia > Sections > Terminal Support > MobileTerminal
Press Install > Confirm to install the app
Once installed, press "Return to Cydia" or "Close Window"
Press Home button
You should now see an icon called Terminal
Press to launch it

At the prompt, type su, and press the return key
You will then be asked to enter the current root user password. Type "alpine" and press Enter
Once into the user, type "passwd" and press Enter
You will now be prompted to enter a new password. Choose a password of your own and enter it, then press enter. You'll be asked to re-type the password. Do it and press enter.

That's it, you're done. Close the app and go back to your Home screen.

This'll cover you from the other worms based on the Rick Astley sneak that have started up since yesterday.