Information Security experts warn that cyber criminals are going to accelerate their activities with the news that jailbreaking the iPhones has become legal in the United States now . Rogue spam emails are now trying to circulate a trojan which can steal information while working as an iPhone unlocking software.
Earlier this week U.S. federal regulatory body, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, have announced that iPhone jailbreaking will be considered as legal. Jailbreaking is the practice of making some changes in iOS in order to allow third-party apps that are not explicitly approved by the Apple Inc.
The news has been quite well appreciated by the users of the iPhone causing cyber crooks to try and utilize the increased public interest into the subject. A new spam currently is in the cyber world to advertise a trojan as an jailbreaking program for iPhone.
“Our software is compatible with all firmwares (including the latest version) and will unlock 3G, 3GS, & 2G iPhone models within just a few minutes. […] You can download the iPhone unlocking software from here: www.unlock[CENSORED]/iphone3gs-3g.exe,” the rogue emails have been quoted to claim.
Security experts from BitDefender, who has analyzed the attack, have noticed that the executable file is actually a computer trojan having the ‘keylogging capabilities’. This has been detected by the company’s products as Trojan.Generic.3010833. The malware can have the access to the stored data once the user installs it. It then can forward all captured data to a particular e-mail account of Hotmail.
“This allows the malware creators to intercept the victim’s visited sites, user names, passwords, bank accounts information, such as pin number, bank account numbers, passwords, etc.,” the BitDefender experts explained. They have advised the users saying, “In order to stay safe, never open suspicious links or attachments without scanning them first. Install and update a complete antimalware software solution,”
However, people who love to download jailbreaking apps should also be careful about the fact that the practice can void the warranty of their devices. Jailbroken iPhones are more vulnerable to the security threats compared to locked-down ones, simply because they accept software that are not been properly scrutinized.
