10 January 2008, 12:15

First malicious application for the iPhone

An eleven-year old boy provided an application called "iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep" in a package repository for the Installer.app package manager, which claimed to prep the device for Jailbreak in the new 1.1.3 firmware. Installer.app is an application that makes it easy to install additional software on hacked iPhones.

The fake firmware prep package did in fact install a collection of well-known iPhone tools (Erica's Utilities). However, uninstalling the package damaged some other previously installed programs including OpenSSH, Launcher and Doom. The package has now been removed from the repository and the child's parents have been informed.

Although this particular case may have been no more than a small boy's prank, it raises the question of what could happen if professional malware writers were to become involved. The ability to install a wide variety of software on the iPhone could lead some users to become careless.