The first iPhone worm is here and targeting users who have jailbroken the iPhone. For those who are infected, you will see the Rick Astley’s big head as wallpaper which “will never going to give you up”. The worm will copy itself and spread all over the network, and so far only users in Australia are affected. Thankfully, the infected iPhone will not be infected again because the worm will close the hole.
The real problem is that people jailbreak the iPhone and install the OpenSSH, but don’t change the default password. There are nothing wrong with Apple (which don’t want you to jailbreak) and the jailbreak tools developers. Don’t hesitate and follow the simple steps below to change the default password. It is tested with iPhone 3GS and firmware 3.1.2. It should work for all iPhone.
1. Install MobileTerminal from Cydia.
2. Type “login”. Enter “root” as login name, and “alpine” as password.
3. Type “passwd” to start to change the password. Type the new password twice.
4. Type “login”. Enter “mobile” as login name, and “alpine” as password.
5. Type “passwd” to start to change the password. It may ask you to type the old password. (and that would be alpine)
6. Reboot the iPhone
Try to use Cyberduck or WinSCP to login to your iPhone again, see if the new password works. You may also want to do use BossPrefs and SBSettings to control the use of SSH. More after the break.
BossPrefs and SBSettings are free at Cydia. Install it and you can switch off the SSH. Turn it on when it’s really necessary.
