World's first iPhone virus changes your wallpaper... to a picture of Rick Astley, hacker claims

Any iPhone estate should investigate www.mobileiron.com - www.cloud-distribution.com/mobileiron/ to ensure their iPhone's are protected from this security risk. A 21-year-old Australian claims to be the first hacker in the world to infect the iPhone with a virus. It spreads between phones with each call but the damage extends to changing the device's wallpaper - to a photo of Eighties pop star Rick Astley famous for his hit Never Gonna Give You Up. Sydney student Ashley Towns said he wanted to raise the issue of security, adding: 'What I've done has shown that anyone can easily hack into an iPhone.' iphone rick Attack: The virus infects iPhones with a picture of 80s pop star Rick Astley He added: 'The virus pretty much exploits people's laziness in not changing their password.' Rick Astley is a popular choice for mischievous computer users. Video-sharing website YouTube has spawned the phenomenon of 'Rickrolling', where a person provides a weblink to an innocent-looking topic but this actually takes the user to a video of Rick Astley singing 'Never Gonna Give You Up.' Mr Towns' virus can only infect iPhones which have been 'jailbroken' by their owners - an action that allows phone owners to install applications on their phones which have not been approved by Apple. Telecommunication experts warn that jailbreaking phones can stir Apple's wrath and that of telephone companies, but there have been few complaints of owners being punished by having their service discontinued. Mr Towns said that after jailbreaking their iPhones people should always change their password because all iPhones use the same password. He said that somebody with more malicious intent could have done anything - broken into a phone to read SMS messages, search through emails and view contacts and photos. 'I'm unaware whether I'm breaking any laws by starting the virus,' said Mr Towns. 'I've been informed that I may have broken some, but not being a lawyer I don't know. 'The virus itself is not malicious and is not out to hurt people. It's just poking fun and hopefully waking people up a little.' He is certain it's the first virus of its kind in the world - 'especially the first that spreads from phone to phone.' He has no idea how many people his virus has affected so far, but he knows that in the initial stages it struck around 100 iPhones. Mr Towns wants to assure users that apart from changing the wallpaper, the virus is not harmful and is quite easy to get rid of. Anyone whose iPhone is infected, he says, need take only a couple of minutes to remove the Rick Astley photo by changing the phone's password and deleting a few files from the phone. The message, he says, is for people to change their passwords whenever they do something new on their iPhones - or the instrument could be struck with a far more dangerous virus than the one he has spread. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1226288/Rick-rolling-worm-hits-iPhone--virus-changes-wallpaper-picture-Rick-Astley.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0WRxKq4O3 visit our website @ http://www.cloud-distribution.com