iPhone worm cripples handsets with Rick Astley

Never going to give you up... until I infect you...
Never going to give you up... until I infect you...

A new virus is infecting iPhones - the Ikee - forcing users to look at a picture of Rick Astley as their wallpaper.

It's only affecting jailbroken phones - those modified to run non-Apple approved software - but can jump from iPhone to iPhone with no input.

The hacker that developed the worm has been identifies as Ashley Towns (who goes by the handle ikeeex), who has stated that he initially infected 100 units with the worm.

"Due to the nature of it, it's kind of hard to tell, I know my phone hit about 100 alone but from there I have no idea," he said.

Waving hello to Astley

He said that the virus hit the first wave of people at 4am on 6 November, and has quickly proliferated around the globe.

There are reports of it changing the picture it sends as well, so if your background suddenly appears to have another picture, then you're probably a victim.

While some are labelling this attack as 'mobile vandalism', others are stating that it shows how unprotected jailbroken iPhones are, especially as mobile virus attacks are on the rise.

If you're one of the users affected by the virus, a conversation with the hacker has been published, where he tells how to unlock the code.

Via Sophos Blog

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.