Nov 23

New iPhone Worm Reported by an ISP in Holland

A new worm has been reportedly spreading into the wild on iPhones that has been jailbroken. The worm attempts to make to many connections and report status to the bad guys to provide control. The main issue currently caused by the worm is resetting the root password, if it was set to default and preventing iPhone users from gaining control back, according to XS4ALL. The worm also tags infected devices with a unique ID number.

An advisory from XS4ALL states “A number of customers with jailbroken phones have been found running unknown software on their phones which is trying to compromise other iPhone users at other telecommunications providers,”

So, how do you know if you are hit? The only noticeable impact to the average iPhone user is the battery life. As the worm is very active when connected to wi-fi hotspots, it attempts to make to many connections to potentially spread to other devices draining the battery down.

What to do if your iPhone is infected? This may not go down well with users who spent money and time to jailbreak their iPhone, but the only known way to get ride of the worm is to reset the iPhone using iTunes. Devices reset via iTunes will not be broken again.

What if you are not infected? Reset you root password quick and disable your wi-fi connection if it’s not used. There is nothing more that says “hack me” then a poor device password and continuously unused Bluetooth and wi-fi on.