Jailbroken iPhones in Australia getting Rickrolled by a worm
If the possibility of having your jailbroken iPod Touch or iPhone held ransom for 5 Euros wasn't enough of a scare to make you change your root password, maybe this will. Users on an Australian forum site are reporting a new attack - one that's no stranger to love.You guessed it, the newest attack on jailbroken devices is a wallpaper Rickroll. Along with Rick Astley's devilishly handsome headshot, the image also includes the message "ikee is never gonna give you up."
It's actually a pretty tame attack. There are no reports in the forum of sounds being replaced with that all-to-familiar opening verse or repeated, mind-numbing video assaults.
At least one variation has also popped up. In addition to Astley, one user commented that his image had been changed to a New England Patriots logo.
The moral of the story?
If you jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch, make sure you change the root password to something other than alpine so you can avoid the shenanigans.
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Liam said 2:11PM on 11-08-2009
but... but... macs don't get viruses, spyware or rickrolls!
Reply
chris said 2:37PM on 11-08-2009
I'm not saying there aren't viruses, spyware, etc. for macs, but it was pointed out that this is happening to jailbroken iPhones, so this is no one's fault except the people who jailbreak theirs.
DeoWulf said 2:45PM on 11-08-2009
Once you get past Apple's restrictions, you are also past their protection. Gasp!
Zintinio said 2:57PM on 11-08-2009
@DeoWulf
What are you talking about? "Past their protection." Apple has nothing to do with this, it was because the user had a jailbroken iphone, and he wasn't careful. Apple does nothing for you.
Reply
David said 3:15PM on 11-08-2009
Serves all these "holier than thou" Mac fanboys (and girls) right.I'm sick of hearing all the anti Microsoft propaganda.Screw em.
Reply
David said 3:18PM on 11-08-2009
Also, the fact that you have to "jailbreak" your damn phone to get out from under Apple & AT&T's bigass thumbs should tell you something.Wake up MacZombies.Quit drinking the Kool Aid.
Reply
Brian! said 6:32AM on 11-09-2009
Sorry, I don't drink Kool Aid. That is not an Apple product.
Michael Argast said 11:19AM on 11-09-2009
Shockingly, when we (Sophos) polled users, 75% said that they believed that spreading this sort of worm was a good thing - to raise security awareness.
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/09/75-worm-author-iphone
Worse, the author is acting as if he didn't do anything wrong...
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/09/worm-author-tells-media-initially-infected-100-iphones/
Per DeoWolf's comment - once you crack your phone, you're on your own.
Michael Argast, Security Analyst, Sophos
Reply