'Rick Astley' iPhone hacker given job

27 Nov 2009, 3:29 pm   -   Source: SBS Staff
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Never gonna give you up: Rick Astely smiles out from an infected iPhone. (Getty)

Never gonna give you up: Rick Astely smiles out from an infected iPhone. (Getty)

 An Australian techie who wrote a 'worm' which installed Rick Astley wallpaper on unsuspecting users has been offered a job at a leading Australian iPhone deveelopment firm.

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The Australian techie who wrote Ikee, a worm that managed to find its way into jailbroken iPhones, has reportedly been hired by Australian iPhone development company mogeneration.

The worm that Ashley Towns wrote searched out jailbroken iPhones (phones that had been tampered with in order to allow the running of unofficial applications) where users had installed an application called SSH - but where they hadn't bothered to change a password. Then, Ikee changed the wallpaper to 80s pop idol Rick Astely.

Recently, a far more agressive- and dangerous - form of the same worm made media headlines by 'phishing' bank details from iPhone users. Although Towns didn't write this version, it used his code as a template.

His appointment by mogeneration has upset some in the security industry, with a spokesperson from Sophos saying that it is "very important that a clear message is sent out that writing viruses and worms is not cool, and not a route into employment", reported the Guardian.

Meanwhile, mogeneration defended the move.

"We interviewed Ashley, assessed him with our iPhone developer test – which he passed with flying colours – and we employed him today", they told the BBC.


 

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