New iPhone/Privacy.A Malware Threatens Jailbroken Devices with Data Theft

Hot on the heels of the ikee worm, a second piece of iPhone-related malware has appeared, which enables hackers to connect to any device that has been jailbroken and still has an unchanged root password. Jailbreaking is a term used to define iPhones that have been hacked by users to enable software other than that available through the App Store to be installed. The new malware takes advantage of the same vulnerability in the iPhone as the ikee worm and has been dubbed iPhone/Privacy.A by Mac security software house, Intego, which first discovered its existence.

The company explained on its blog that hackers use the tool by installing it on either their own or compromised third-party Macs, PCs, Unix and Linux-based machines - or even on iPhones themselves. The program scans networks that are accessible to it and, when it finds a jailbroken iPhone, breaks into it, steals data including email, contacts and music files, and copies them.