Computer worm delivers Rick Astley payload

Posted on 9 Nov 2009 at 10:39

A new internet worm is attacking iPhones and wreaking havoc by spreading images of 80s pop singer Rick Astley. The ikee worm appears to have three main functions: it infects 'jailbroken' iPhones; it disables SSH to prevent others from accessing the phone remotely; and it changes the desktop wallpaper to an image of Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) vocalist Astley.

Four variants of the worm are currently in the wild, according to security firm Sophos, and it would be surprising if further attacks do not occur in the near future as the jailbroken iPhone's vulnerability was only publicised just a week ago.

Technical readers may be amused to note that the worm also appears to write lyrics from Astley's hits into the phone's log files. The snippet of the worm's code published on Sophos' website includes this line:

syslog(LOG_DEBUG, "IIIIIII Just want to tell you how im feeling");

iPhones that have not been jailbroken are not targeted by the worm. Securing a jailbroken phone involves either disabling SSH or simply changing the root password (which is a highly advisable thing to do, even if SSH is disabled).

Author: Simon Edwards

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