New Trojan Targets iPhone

Filed in archive Malware on January 7, 2008

Researchers at Symantec have discovered a trojan targeted toward the iphone. Disguised as "iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep", it claims to be a critical firmware update. Fortunately, it turns out to be more annoying than malicious. It overwrites "Erica's utilities" and OpenSSH. When the trojan is removed it those apps are deleted with it. While this particular malware isn't particularly harmful, it opens the door to future attacks that may be. Researchers at Independent Security Evaluators announced last June that the iPhone is vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks, which could allow hackers to steal personal information. It appears that malware authors now have a new target for future attacks-this particular Trojan is only the beginning. The site that was hosting the malware has been shutdown, but a new one is sure to replace it. If you or your users have an iPhone, be extremely careful of what you install on it!