iBotnet is the third worm to infect the iPhone and iPod Touch using an exploit with the SSH password that most people don’t bother to change from ‘alpine’. The other instances of worms on the iPhone were called Ikee and the iPhone/Privacy.A. The Ikee worm was a harmless one which changed the background of your lockscreen to a photo of Rick Astley. However the second one (and this one) are more harmful.
The second one, called iPhone/Privacy.A attacked users who did online banking with the Dutch bank ING by redirecting them to a phishing site to try and trick them into giving up their bank details.
This virus, called iBotnet.A is also a malicious one. It has the same purpose as botnets on the computer. Once a device is taken over, the hacker can use it to perform attacks on websites by overloading or other such reasons.
The worms only infect jaibroken iPhones and iPod Touchs which have SSH installed and haven’t changed their SSH passwords.
The worms are starting to spread world wide as they are made to duplicated autmatically. There are reports of the worms in Netherlands, Portugal, Hungary and Australia (where Ikke originated from).
Luckily there is an easy fix. It is simply to change the SSH password for your device. If you have not done this you are VERY LIABLE to worms on your device which could end up with hackers stealing sensitive data such as your credit card details.
I cannot stress enough have important it is that you change you SSH password. Not only are you a victim but you will also be spreading the worm.
We have posted a guide on how to change your SSH password here. If you have not done it, do it now!
