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Mon, 09 Nov 2009 No regrets from Aussie Rick Astley iPhone virus creator

Towns said he loves the iPhone so there was no vendetta against Apple

Kathryn Edwards Computerworld Australia

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The Australian programmer who claims to have created the world's first Apple iPhone virus as a prank has told Computerworld Australia, sister publication to Macworld, he does not regret writing it.

The worm, 'Ikee' changes iPhone owners' wallpaper and replaces it with a photo of '80s pop star Rick Astley and the message "ikee is never going to give you up".

Twenty-one-year-old Wollongong resident Ashley Towns, said he created the virus out of curiosity and boredom.

"I had just formatted my iPhone and it told me to set the password in bold, big letters and I wondered how many people have actually done that," Towns said.

"So I ran a scan on my [Optus] 3G network and there was 26 phones running the service that's vulnerable, and out of that 26, 25 hadn't changed their passwords."

Towns said he loves the iPhone so there was no vendetta against Apple, just disbelief that many users had failed to change their passwords when requested to do so.

"It's the simplest thing to change your password, it's not hard and if you're going to install something like SSH...I could have gone through and read people's messages and emails - all their barter was up for grabs," Towns said.

Although Ikee does not appear malicious, it has the potential to be modified and perform tasks such as stealing sensitive information from iPhone users. The worm can affect jailbroken iPhones running a Unix utility called SSH (Secure Shell) with the iPhone's default password, "alpine," still in use.

Once in place, the worm appears to attempt to find other iPhones on the mobile phone network that are similarly vulnerable, and installs itself again.

Towns admitted he was targeting phones on both Telstra and Vodafone, as well as Optus, however he soon discovered that Telstra and Vodafone are behind NAC firewalls, making their SSH inaccessible.

However, he said the worm can spread between phones on the same Wi-Fi network.

Despite admitting the virus was a form of vandalism, Towns said he stands by his decision to release the worm.

"All the worm does is change your background to Rick Astley, so it's not malicious, it's not going to harm anyone's phone other than people having to look at Rick Astley until they remove it," Towns said.

Although so far confined to Australia, Towns said the virus has the potential to spread globally and claimed to have read reports the virus turned up in China.

Australian iPhone users have reported their experience with the worm, flooding Internet forum Whirlpool with posts about their experience.

Security vendor Sophos reports that at least four variants of the worm code have been written so far, with one variant trying to hide its presence by using a filepath suggestive of the Cydia application.

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VJ said on Mon, 09 Nov 2009

Should still go to jail.

ColmM10 said on Mon, 09 Nov 2009

I don't think he should go to jail. I think it's good what he's doing so people will know to change their passwords

Jailbait said on Mon, 09 Nov 2009

The ones that should go to jail are the ones that got caught out by this.

cssgamer said on Mon, 09 Nov 2009

??? ??????? ????? ??????

Gojirason said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

A rick rolling IPHONE virus... what will be next?

@VJ said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

I agree. It is a virus, regardless of what it does and who it attacks.

@ the last dumbo said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

Tell us how it is a virus? How does it spread?

Do you know what you are talking about?

vetinari said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

He's putting something on a device I own and he shouldn't. It's just as bad as spam or a virus.
He should keep his sorry astley thingie to himself and not bother me.
He should get a girlfriend or something, but refrain from annoying other people who didn't ask for this.

Neil said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

ooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!! handbag....

JT said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

Better still, get a decent phone from a company that does not decide what you can and can't install on it.

@JT said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

But the people that caught this had phones that they could decide what they wanted to put on them, that's the whole point! DOH!!!

@@JT said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

No, they had iPhones that they tried to turn into decent phones and didn't reset the password. Obviously not worthy of a decent phone.

@JT said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

So they bought a phone that wasn't decent? What total imbeciles.

Do you think about what you post?

codemon09 said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

*the worst thing is clearly the news article mentioning the SSH password of "alpine"!!!*

dunkdogg said on Tue, 10 Nov 2009

maybe he should get slapped with a fine. but jail may be a bit much. i mean, its is rick astley after all. who hasnt rocked to him at least once before?

JPH200 said on Wed, 11 Nov 2009

Anyone caught having deliberately injected a virus, keylogger or trojan into the web of any kind should be subject to an automatic prison sentence of, at least, two years and have their computer previleges revolked for life. These social misfit monsters cause more emotional misery with their actions than they can image...to say nothing of the money and man hours wasted by victims that try and recover. Most of these hacker jerks are sophmoric mental midget obstructionists and social misfits and have no socially redeeming valves. Make no mistake about it. These hackers are criminals...pure and simple.

darkmavis said on Wed, 11 Nov 2009

I think it's funny.
I also think that if you're dumb enough to leave the default password on, you're asking for it. People should think themselves lucky they only got a pic of Rick Astley and not something that actually hurts, and should take it as a sign to change their password before it's too late.

pandapug88 said on Mon, 23 Nov 2009

Okay, obviously he wasn't trying to upset anyone. He just wanted to call attention to people so they wouldn't get hurt. If they can remove the wallpaper, it's not really a VIRUS, just a friendly prank... if it opens the eyes of the people, I don't think he should go to JAIL... just a fine as "dunkdogg" said.

junQin said on Mon, 23 Nov 2009

I have written a comprehensive solution to removing the iKee virus. I have tried it out on my iPhone. So it should work fine for you.

goto-> junqin1.blogspot.com/2009/11/ikee-iphone-worm.html

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