Earlier this week a hacker release an iPhone virus that didn’t do any damaged to your iPhone besides “Rick Rolling” your phone by add a picture of Rick Astley as your iPhone background. Today someone has taken that relatively harmless code and modified it to steal you personal data.
Mac security vendor Intego calls the code “iPhone/Privacy.A.” It is a malicious tool hackers install on Windows, Mac, Unix or Linux systems, and even on iPhones, using those devices to scan for “jailbroken” iPhones, some of which are vulnerable to the malware.
If it finds a vulnerable iPhone within its range, the malware copies e-mail, contacts, SMS (Short Message Service) messages, calendar entries, photos, music, videos and any data recorded by an iPhone application, according to an advisory from Intego.
This only affects jailbroken phones running an SSH server with the default root password still set. If you have a jailbroken phone and don’t know how to change the default root password, you can follow my easy step by step guide.