First iPhone Trojan Seen in the World

Apple's going to have a field day with this. "See, if you hadn't hacked or jailbroken your iPhone, this wouldn't have happened," and "look what could happen."

This malware, more of a prank than anything else, targets those who have modified their iPhone so they can install 3rd-party utilities. In this case, the trojan masquerades as an update to Erica's Utilities.

The package is called "iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep" and doesn't do much; it just displays "shoes." However, because of the way it installs, when you try to remove it, it will remove Erica's Utilities and other apps like OpenSSH as well.

So the big hassle is having to re-install them. But it does show what could be done if someone wanted to.

Both Symantec and F-Secure have advisories on the malware. The hosting websites have been taken down, so both feel that the risk is now minimal. Notably, the malware was apparently written by an 11-year-old.