Hacker Holds Dutch iPhones for Petty Ransom

A hacker on Monday annoyed several Dutch iPhone owners by sending an unremovable warning message stating their phones had been hacked. He offered instructions to remove the hack in exchange for a meager ransom of ?5 ($7).

Displayed in the screenshot to the right, the hacker’s security message contained a URL directing iPhone owners to send money to a PayPal account. The directions have since been removed, as the site appears to have been reported to the internet service provider.

The exploit only worked against jailbroken iPhones. Many iPhone owners who jailbreak their handsets perform a common procedure called enabling SSH in order to execute UNIX commands on the device. iPhones have a default root password that many forget to change, and the hacker was able to scan for iPhones on the T-Mobile Netherlands network running SSH and then gain access by entering the default password, Ars Technica’s Chris Foresman explained.

Clever trick, and it appears the hacker pulled this stunt mostly to show off. He’s since apologized for asking for money and posted instructions for undoing the hack.

See Also:

• Hacker Says iPhone 3GS Encryption Is ‘Useless’ for Businesses …


• iPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cellphone Towers, Apple Claims …


• Apple Patches iPhone SMS Security Hole With Software Update …


• Text-Message Exploit Can Hijack Every iPhone, Researchers Say …

Dutch hacker holds jailbroken iPhones “hostage” for ?5 (Updated) [ArsTechnica]

Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/wPwgyc57tMs/