Warning to all iPhone users

Well it has finally arrived, the first worm to be discovered and isolated on the iPhone in the United States. It seems that the worm was translated from Dutch and first spotted in the Netherlands. This worm originated from the ikee virus that would change the wallpaper it’s “victims” to that of the 80’s pop icon Rick Astley. This worm only appeared in Australia, and affected only jailbroken phones who had installed the program SSH and had not changed their default password. This would then allow the embedded program to change the wallpaper of that iPhone. And although the worm seems harmless, the cost to repair affected customer’s iPhones along with the fact that someone had gained the ability to access someone else’s computer device and change their data without their permission, makes this a serious matter. And now it has reached the U.S. And it seems that, again, an open SSH program enabled the malware to become installed on people’s jailbroken iPhones. Wireless internet providers have sent out a warning to all those who might be vulnerable to the malware’s effects and the servers have updated their malware protection programs and now have the ability to dump the SMS database if they need to. Of course this only affects jailbroken iPhones, so if this does not apply to you, there is no need to worry. But what does it mean to “jailbreak” the iPhone? Simply put, jailbreaking is a type of hacking that allows the user to bypass the detection code or filter, that allows only certain types of applications to be downloaded on to the phone itself. So it basically allows you to download apps that you wouldn’t have been able to download before. Of course, we can now see that this also opens the doors for potential viruses as well. And even though the necessary precautions are set up, it seems the apple products are no longer immune to worms and viruses.

But I guess it was bound to happen sometime. I believe that computer viruses are completely pointless, all they do is screw up other people computers and don’t serve any real purpose. The people who design those types of viruses and worms obviously have too much time on their hands. But that doesn’t mean that those who jailbreak their iPhones and iTouchs are not to blame as well. If you are going to open up your computer device like that and remove all of your protection then honestly what do you think will happen? Basically if you remove your armor, your probably going to get hurt; it’s a no-brainer. So I would say that two parties are at fault here, but the wireless servers and Apple company are the ones who will have to pay, because they will be the ones to clean up this mess.