The Whirlpool forum has been overwhelmed these past few days with jailbroken iPhone users waking to discover they’ve been rickrolled – a photo of Rick Astley seemingly permanently attached to their iPhone’s screen and the words “ikee is never going to give you up” emblazoned across the top. It seems jailbreaking may not be as safe as it seems.
Fortunately the virus is little more than a prank and not actually malicious. It only affects jailbroken iPhones with an SSH daemon installed. It preys on the fact that many users haven’t actually changed their SSH password from the default Alpine.
Whirlpool user JD managed to track down the guy behind the virus and interviewed him on his blog. There are instructions on how to undo the rickroll if you’ve been victim to this virus, as well as a post dedicated to how to prevent future viruses hitting you through the same security hole.
Despite the somewhat questionable method of doing it, ikee has at least done one good thing in reminding us all of the importance of changing default passwords. If you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone, you should probably change all your passwords now. In fact, today’s probably a good day to change all your passwords for everything, just in case – because next time, it might not just be a picture of Rick Astley on your home screen…