A new iPhone worm, capable of hijacking pre-jailbroken iPhones and forcing them to become zombies to a botnet, has emerged in the wild.
The “Duh” worm, discovered by F-Secure, only affects jailbroken iPhones with SSH installed and still set on the default password.
It appears to specifically target people situated in the Netherlands using their iPhones for internet banking via a specific Dutch online bank, redirecting victims to a fake log-in screen.
But the worm also allows criminals to remotely access or control infected handsets, the BBC reported.
While currently only a few hundred iPhones are believed to be affected by the worm, it is capable of transmitting itself from infected handsets to any iPhones using the same Wi-Fi hotspot.
F-Secure warned that the worm could be capable of spreading beyond the Netherlands.
The first iPhone worm, ikee, surfaced this month. The malware “rickrolls” infected users, changing their wallpaper to a photo of 80s pop star Rick Astley.
But unlike the ikee worm, the Duh worm was clearly written with the intent to make money from cybercrime, F-Secure said.