So it's finally happened. A trojan horse piece of software has been found out in the wild by Modmyiphone enthusiast forum and then confirmed by security research company F-secure.
The trojan will only affect jailbroken iPhones, so those of you who haven't jailbroken your iPhone have nothing to worry about.
According to the forum, the application masquerades itself as an update to Erica's Utilities and is labeled as "113 prep." When loaded all the app does is display the word "shoes." But after uninstalling the app, it removes files from the /bin directory on the iPhone, breaking valid apps that were installed on the jailbroken phone.
Reportedly, F-Secure said that it was an 11-year-old child playing with XML files who created the Trojan.
This trojan may have been harmless, but no telling what could happen if some malicious hacker decided to try out a few things right?
While we don't want to bash anyone who has jailbroken their iPhone, we do want to mention that you really don't know the people on the other end who are making these applications. Using a third party installer app like AppTap doesn't give you security that you might think it does.
Our advice is to wait for the official Apple SDK and official Apple distribution method before installing third party apps on your iPhone. You have been warned.
The trojan will only affect jailbroken iPhones, so those of you who haven't jailbroken your iPhone have nothing to worry about.
According to the forum, the application masquerades itself as an update to Erica's Utilities and is labeled as "113 prep." When loaded all the app does is display the word "shoes." But after uninstalling the app, it removes files from the /bin directory on the iPhone, breaking valid apps that were installed on the jailbroken phone.
Reportedly, F-Secure said that it was an 11-year-old child playing with XML files who created the Trojan.
This trojan may have been harmless, but no telling what could happen if some malicious hacker decided to try out a few things right?
While we don't want to bash anyone who has jailbroken their iPhone, we do want to mention that you really don't know the people on the other end who are making these applications. Using a third party installer app like AppTap doesn't give you security that you might think it does.
Our advice is to wait for the official Apple SDK and official Apple distribution method before installing third party apps on your iPhone. You have been warned.
