World’s first iPhone virus sucks as a virus
By Danny Mendez
It can hardly be called a virus, but what else do you call a program that maliciously screws with with your software?
It’s called "iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep," according to Cnet, and is described as "an important system update." The trojan was available through Installer.app until the right people figured out what was happening.
The program isn’t truly a threat as it only displays the word "shoes", but it overwrites several third-party applications. As far as we currently know, it seems to mess with Erica’s Utilities, Launcer, Doom, OpenSSH, but it tends to leave the original apps alone.
The program doesn’t seem to overwrite the apps on purpose, but instead it’s likely to do so as a result of bad programming. It’s very unlikely that you’ll come into contact with the program as it requires the user to install it and it doesn’t travel on its own. You’d even be lucky to find it as all the host sites have been shut down.
Unfortunately, it seems iPhone developer (hackers) didn’t create a system of checks and balances in Installer.app to determine whether a program is good or bad. There’s a good chance we’ll start to see malicious hackers purposely adding apps designed to mess with your phone and maybe even steal your information, so make sure to research any apps you’d like to install.
We’re entering a new iPhone era which will likely no longer be the easy-going, fun-loving, third-party app happy place it once was.
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