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Safety in Jail: Apple Responds to Worm Threats

J Keirn-Swanson — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:46:21 -0600

In their statement regarding the recent threat, a worm that potentially can steal financial data, Apple parentally tsk-tsks users sporting jailbroken phones that modding in this way "not only violate[s] the warranty [but] will also cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably."

It has the benefit of being true, though. Opening up your phone through jailbreaking, while giving you greater app flexibility among other things, can leave your iPhone exposed to hackers. If you're going that route, be sure to change your root password from the default "alpine."

Image Source: Instructables.com

As might seem natural, the first hack merely Rickrolled the user's wallpaper, but the threats have grown worse. A few weeks back, jailbroken iPhones were at the center of a 5 Euros scam where a hacker compromised the same security hole and changed the wallpaper to a message directing users to his site. There, with a PayPal link, he offered instructions to close the hole for five Euros.

This demonstrated a low level of of malice, but the scam paved the way for others. According to Sophos, the latest threat is a worm that attacks jailbroken iPhones in the Netherlands, Australia and other countries. The worm changes the handset's root password, scans through your SMS database looking for other phones to infect, and will redirect users of a Netherland bank site to a fake site to collect their login info. The only way to get rid of the worm is to restore your iPhone's firmware.

As smartphones become an ever more prevalent part of our lives, it's clear that such threats are going to be with us for some time to come and are only going to get worse. If you're going to strike out on the road away from the protections offered by Cupertino, remember to be vigilant.

Another Worm Infecting Jailbroken iPhones

Andrew Villa — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:44:01 -0600

A new worm is out hitting jailbroken iPhones, one that crawls its way into your device if you haven't changed your root password. If you haven't changed your root password you can learn all about it here.

According to Macworld, after the worm compromises your phone, it goes on to replace the phone's copy of the SSH remote login software and changes the root password, skims your SMS database, talks to the creators, and then launches a piece of software that searches for other phones that are vulnerable on both local networks and known IP address ranges of specific Internet Service Providers.

Users are finding the most noticeable symptom is the increased battery drain, as a result of the SSH process that the worm starts. Some have seen such a bad reduction in battery life that they are just wiping and restoring their handsets, without noticing that the worm was installed.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone, or are considering it, make sure to changethe root password.

New App for Jailbroken iPhones Integrates Multitasking

Andrew Villa — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:12:58 -0600

If you've been waiting for a multitasking application, then this is the app for you! It's available on the Rock store and is also showing up on the Cydia store as well.

Multifl0w runs in the background of your OS and can run as many apps in the background as your phone has memory, so 3G users can install this, but 3GS users may have a better experience, as it has twice the memory capacity of the 3G.

More information can be found at Just Another iPhone Blog

Malicious iPhone Worm Threatens Jailbroken Devices

Cory Bohon — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:50:10 -0600

iPhone jailbreakers beware: a malicious worm for the iPhone is making its rounds.

iPhone owners with jailbroken devices running a Secure Shell network (SSH) are the only users affected due to the owner not changing the default SSH password, making their device vulnerable to hackers.

Once infected, the user will be tricked into thinking they're being Rickrolled with a wallpaper that features Rick Astley and the words "ikee never gonna give you up."

This isn't the first time that this hack has been used against unsuspecting iPhone owners, but this new malware is the first to spread from affected devices to other jailbroken iPhones using the default SSH password.

Ars Technica is reporting that there are at least four variants of this worm that are making their rounds.

The worm debuted in Australia on the Optus mobile network and has currently spread to Optus iPhones in other countries.

Protecting yourself from this virus is as simple as getting rid of the default password on your Jailbroken iPhone's SSH feature. You can get the instructions for doing this on the F-Secure website.

Sophos anti-virus firm has more details on this worm on their website.

Once again, this shows the potential security risk that could arise from jailbreaking your iPhone/iPod touch.

iPhone Tethering on OS 3.1.2

Cory Bohon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:58:30 -0600

Many iPhone users were dismayed when Apple released an update that killed the tethering hack for iPhone OS 3.1. Never fear, there's a new way to enable that good ol' tethering once again.

MobileCrunch has posted a series of steps that can help you get tethering on your iPhone 3G/3GS back in no time at all. It does require you to jailbreak and unlock your device (not for the feint of heart), but their post does a great job explaining exactly what to do.

Here's the basic steps:

1. Download blackra1n (Mac or Win) and jailbreak your device

2. Unlock your device with the blacksn0w application that's included on your device after the jailbreak

3. Install the custom carrier settings (IPCC) file from Mobile Safari

4. Enable tethering in the settings

MobileCrunch has the full tutorial with screenshots.

via LifeHacker

Blacksn0w Unlocks iPhone 3G and 3GS with OS 3.1.2

Andrew Villa — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:43:51 -0600

Make reports that an exploit was found by developer/hacker GeoHot that has lead to an unlock for the iPhone 3G and 3GS that use the 05.11.07 baseband. The baseband was cracked and the newest piece of code used to unlock your iPhone is titled blacksn0w.

Blacksn0w is available inside the app blackra1n for Mac and Windows users at blackr1n jailbreak. Lets just hope that GeoHot gets his $10,000 from Jody Sanders, the guy that sells freely available unlock tools and support to iPhone owners.

If you do plan on using the blackra1n app to unlock your iPhone, remember that you will need to connect your iPhone via USB to your Mac in order to restart it.

As always, jailbreaking your iPhone could void your warranty and brick the device. Use common sense.

Change the Text Message Alert Sounds On Your Jailbroken iPhone

Roberto Baldwin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:13:22 -0500

Now that everyone you know has an iPhone, it's probably getting pretty annoying when, every time a text message arrives, all the people in your office reach for their iPhones.

Unless of course you're one of those folks that enjoys the Horn alert. No one is using that one. Well, except for clowns and 4-year-olds.

If you're brave enough to jailbreak your iPhone, then a new message alert is only a few steps away.

Difficulty Level: Medium

What You Need:

> Jailbroken iPhone
> GarageBand, Audacity or other audio-editing application
> iPhone Explorer

We apologize to everyone with a non-jailbroken iPhone. We've tried to find a way to make this work on those phones with no luck.

The Alert

Before you start poking around inside your iPhone, you'll need to figure out what you want your new message alert to be. We're going old school and using the Wild Eep from Apple's days of yore. It's the correct length and gives us some cool geek cred.

Your alert sound should be 1-4 seconds long and no longer. If your audio file is too long, use GarageBand or Audacity to trim the audio.

We'll use GarageBand '09

1. Open GarageBand and open the iPhone Ringtone area. Choose Example Ringtone.

2. Remove the audio already in the timeline and drop your audio into there.

3. Trim the audio to about one second and make sure the yellow loop indicator is also at one second and snapped to the same length of your audio file.

4. Navigate to the menubar Share > Export Song to Disk. Click Export when the dialog box appears asking to export to CD quality. DO NOT click Compress.

5. Name and save your new AIFF. We're going to name our file sms-received4.aif. You'll understand why when we get to alert sound switching time.

6. Navigate in the Finder to where you saved your file. Change the extension from .aif to .caf (Core Audio File). The iPhone needs this extension to recognize the sound. We'll explain in a little bit the significance of this file name.

Your ringtone is now ready for the iPhone. Let's get inside your iPhone. Now you could SSH to get into your jailbroken iPhone. And you could use QuickTime to edit your movies, but why make things more difficult than they need to be?

Instead of downloading apps on your iPhone and busting open the Terminal, lets go the easy GUI route with iPhone Explorer. If you're ever used an FTP client, you'll be at home with iPhone Explorer.

Getting it on your iPhone

If you can navigate a computer or FTP site, you can navigate through the iPhone.

1. Plug your iPhone in as you would normally. Launch iPhone Explorer. If the app puts you in a random folder just click on the Up Folder Level button until you reach /. Your window should look similar to the one above.

If the app doesn't want to behave via the Up Folder Level button, click the Change Root button.

You can also use this preference pane to set custom directory paths.

Choose the button with the picture of the jailbroken iPhone. That will take you to the top root level.

Backup your old system sounds with a new name, just in case.

2. Navigate to /system/Library/Audio/UISounds/. In this folder are all the fun alert sounds for your iPhone. You can change the Lock sound, the Photo Shutter sound. It's all here for your amusement. What we are interested in is the Text Message Alert sounds. Those audio files are named:

sms-receivedX.caf

The X represents a number between 1 and 6. We tried adding a 7, but the iPhone wouldn't recognize it. Instead, we replaced one of the audio files with our new one.

Adios, Honk

3. We choose file sms-received4.caf to replace because that's the irritating Horn alert we spoke of earlier.

Select a file and click Play. Boom, you're previewing.

You can preview the sounds from within iPhone Explorer in case you love the Horn alert and would like to choose another. We then changed the name of the Horn alert inside the iPhone to sms-received_4.caf. We added the underscore to the file so that it still resides on the iPhone as a backup and isn't replaced when we dropped our custom alert file into the iPhone. In case we sell our phone to a clown at some point.

The new and replaced file on your iPhone are highlighted here

4. Drag and drop the audio file you created earlier to iPhone Explorer.

The Horn, yeah it's really the Wild Epp.

5. Grab your iPhone and navigate to Settings > Sounds > New Text Message. Tap on the sound you replaced, and you should hear your new text alert sound.

Enjoy being unique again.

Props to Project Amplify for their original how-to.

Check out the video below of the process.

iPhone 3GS Still Jailbreakable?

Cory Bohon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:41:03 -0500

Earlier this week reports came out about Apple updating the bootrom in the newly shipping iPhone 3GSes, but as it turns out, this device will not stop jailbreaking.

Wired interviewed Eric McDonald, a member of the iPhone Dev Team who said, "It’s not going to be impossible to jailbreak even if the exploit we used is gone."

McDonland goes on to say that you can still jailbreak the currently shipping iPhone 3GSes, and that the 24kpwn exploit only made it easier to boot the hacked device. Since the new bootrom interferes with the 24kpwn exploit, you'll need to plug in your device to your computer to start it up after a shutdown.

Of course, this inconvenience will not stop the hacking-faithful, nor will it stop the iPhone Dev Team. You can read the full interview on Wired.