Prank iPhone?

I received an e-mail from my friend Maged Boulos yesterday which contained the following warning:

'The first Malware for the iPhone has appeared. It began to appear a few days ago as a package named "iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep" and was described as "An important system update. Install this before updating to the new 1.1.3 firmware." During the installation, the package overwrites some other applications including OpenSSH and "Erica's Utilities"—a collection of command line tools for the iPhone. If the user uninstalls the fake 1.1.3 prep package, these other apps are also removed. No explicitly malicious actions are taken though; all the user need do is to reinstall the lost apps.'

This application problem is probably an unintended side-effect, and the fake package appears to be a prank, intended to be harmless. But it does show the potential for malware to do damage to iPhones and the need for users to be cautious.

Well, it's very nice of the malware writers to think of us iPhone users. We would feel left out if they hadn't created some special viruses just for us. If I ever meet one though, I will cheerfully dispatch them prematurely to the place all virus writers are destined to end up...

And get this.... the University's intelligent anti-spam software 'cleverly' identified Maged's e-mail as 'spam', so I didn't see it immediately, as it was zapped into my 'to delete' file.

Valentine's Day Massicker

First thing you get when you rise on Valentine's Day (if you're lucky) is a card, a bunch of flowers, or a box of chocolates. Nice. I awoke this morning to find that my dearest had placed a massive tube of Toblerone on my pillow. Later, I will be washing the melted chocolate out of my hair. Next, you log on, open up your e-mail box and find a lovely message from someone waiting to be read (probably your lover, or her best friend). You open it to read the sweet nothings, and arrrghhhh! It's not what you think! It's an attack of the worms. Not very romantic on this romanticest of days. (Is that a word? It is now...) Here is a warning from our cyber guardians Sophos about this latest malware attack.

Subject lines used in the attack, say Sophos, are many and varied, but all pose as a romantic message. Some of them include "A Valentine Love Song", "Be My Valentine", "Fly Away Valentine", "For My Valentine", "Happy Valentine's Day", "My Lucky Valentine", "My Valentine", "My Valentine Heart", "My Valentine Sunshine", "Send Love On Valentines", "The Valentine Love Bug", "The Valentines Angel", "Valentine's Love", "Valentine's Night", "Valentine Letter", "Valentine Love Song", "Valentine Sweetie", "Valentines Day Dance", "Valentines Day is here again", and "Your Love on Valentine's". It all means the same thing, unfortunately. It's that rotten W32/Dref-AB worm again.

An arrow through the heart? I'd say so. When those cyber criminals are finally caught, I hope they get a damn good slapping. I wouldn't be in their shoes for love nor money.