Worm infects iPhones

Those of you who have been waiting with bated breath for malware to make its way to the iPhone may resume breathing; a worm named ikee has made its appearance on the Apple handset.

Reports from Australia indicate that the new worm has popped up there and may be the first to infect the iPhone in the wild. Ikee changes the wallpaper on infected devices to a picture of Rick Astlee, of rickrolling fame, along with the caption, “Ikee is never going to give you up.” The current iteration of the worm is apparently stopped by the standard Apple operating system as long as the phone has not been jailbroken, but jailbroken phones are fair game. As far as is known, the worm does not do other harm to its targets, though a photo of Rick Astlee could be considered bad enough.

Nor is the cure very difficult. Users just need to change their passwords then erase a few files to rid themselves of Astlee and the worm, according to a USA Today story. The worm was created by a fellow named Ashley Towns, who still lives at home with his family and may have too much time on his hands. He said he created the worm to raise user awareness of iPhone security issues, but one wonders if getting his name in the papers may have been a consideration.

The good news is that Towns may be forever equated with Astlee. The bad news, of course, is that his “exploit” (sneaking up behind unsuspecting iPhones is not exactly dragon slaying) will plant the iPhone worm idea in yet more adolescent heads and eventually one of those will be nasty rather than simply of a middle school mentality. Hacking under the banner of righteous indignation has become quite tiresome, but hacking that could disrupt the lives of millions is vandalism of the highest order. One wonders what motivates heads like that.

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