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iPhone Gets A TrojaniPhone Gets A Trojan
According to <a href="http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39291979,00.htm">reports</a>, the iPhone is no longer a virgin. The first Trojan targeting the iPhone has been spotted. It appears that only iPhones living on the wild side (a.k.a., unlocked iPhones) are subject to catching the Trojan, which can cause brain damage and embarrassing blemishes on the antenna module. (OK, I made that last part up.)
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According to reports, the iPhone is no longer a virgin. The first Trojan targeting the iPhone has been spotted. It appears that only iPhones living on the wild side (a.k.a., unlocked iPhones) are subject to catching the Trojan, which can cause brain damage and embarrassing blemishes on the antenna module. (OK, I made that last part up.)The Trojan was discovered by F-Secure, a security vendor. According to ZDNet in the U.K., the Trojan is fairly benign and only causes the word "shoes" to appear on the iPhone's screen. The Trojan is called "iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep", which could fool users into thinking they are installing the latest firmware from Apple. Sadly, that is not the case.
"This is technically the first Trojan horse seen for the iPhone; however, it does appear to be more of a prank than an actual threat," Cox wrote in a blog post. "The impact of uninstalling the 'Trojan' would appear to be an unintended side effect."
Affected users need to uninstall the Trojan and reinstall affected files, according to Symantec. The risk to users is minimal as they would have to choose to install the bogus package and the site which was hosting it has now been taken offline, wrote Cox.
The moral of the story is, unlocking iPhones can lead to actual damage to the device when installing unapproved third-party applications. This is exactly the scenario Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants to avoid by keeping the iPhone under lock and key.
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