Install0us is an iPhone app that is like the iPhone’s official App Store — except it’s connected to a treasure trove of pirated apps. Launched several months ago, Install0us is connected to a huge database of cracked iPhone apps, which are freely available for users to download. Running on jailbroken iPhones and iPts, the Install0us

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Filed under: Apple , iPhone , App Store , iPod touch Ars Technica has reported that a recent study from market research firm Gartner shows Apple’s App Store is responsible for a staggering 99.4% of all mobile app sales in 2009. However, as Daring Fireball’s John Gruber points out , Apple didn’t say it sold 2.5 billion apps in 2009; users downloaded 2.5 billion apps in 2009, including free apps. Even with that distinction between sales and downloads in mind, it’s not difficult to see that Apple has a huge hold on the mobile app market, although it’s probably not as huge as Gartner’s numbers would lead us to believe. According to the Gartner study, all other mobile manufacturers’ platforms combined accounted for a mere 16 million apps downloaded in 2009. Note, however, that Gartner’s analysis appears to focus on manufacturer-based stores (RIM, Microsoft, Google, etc.) rather than carrier-based stores (Verizon, Vodafone, etc.). It’s likely that mobile phone service providers’ stores account for a higher number of downloaded apps than the 16 million cited in Gartner’s research; the study also doesn’t appear to account for third-party stores for jailbroken iPhones, such as Cydia . This means Gartner’s 99.4% number for Apple’s mobile application marketshare is likely to be fairly wide of the mark. Regardless of the possible inaccuracy of Gartner’s figure, it’s still clear that when it comes to mobile applications, the App Store has very effectively set the standard for the market. App Store accounts for 99.4% of mobile apps in 2009? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . App Store accounts for 99.4% of mobile apps in 2009? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

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Last week the news about yet another non-belligerent iPhone worm did the rounds and people responded by saying things like “How silly jailbreaker’s are for not changing their SSH root passwords,” and “It’s only a matter of time until a worm appears that’s not so friendly…” OK, yes, geeky people said those things. Normals will likely never know that jailbreaking is something you can do to a phone. Well, the predictions of gloom have proven true. Over the last few days, and reported by The Mac Observer, a new worm has been identified. This one, (so-far limited to iPhone owners in the Netherlands), takes advantage of the exact same SSH-exploit as the previous worm. Once on a user’s iPhone, it circumvents Mobile Safari’s anti-phishing technology to present a spoof of a popular banking website. Users are tricked into handing over their online banking authentication details. The worm spreads from iPhone to iPhone, but is limited to jailbroken handsets connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Apple has weighed-in with its own sage wisdom and advice on the matter. Speaking to The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison said: The worm affects only a very specific set of iPhone users who have jail broken their iPhones and hacked it with unauthorized software. As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones, and for good reason. These hacks not only violate the warranty, they will also cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably

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In their statement regarding the recent threat, a worm that potentially can steal financial data, Apple parentally tsk-tsks users sporting jailbroken phones that modding in this way "not only violate[s] the warranty [but] will also cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably." It has the benefit of being true, though. Opening up your phone through jailbreaking, while giving you greater app flexibility among other things, can leave your iPhone exposed to hackers. If you’re going that route, be sure to change your root password from the default "alpine." Image Source: Instructables.com As might seem natural, the first hack merely Rickrolled the user’s wallpaper , but the threats have grown worse. A few weeks back, jailbroken iPhones  were at the center of a 5 Euros scam where a hacker compromised the same security hole and changed the wallpaper to a message directing users to his site. There, with a PayPal link, he offered instructions to close the hole for five Euros. This demonstrated a low level of of malice, but the scam paved the way for others. According to Sophos , the latest threat is a worm that attacks jailbroken iPhones in the Netherlands, Australia and other countries. The worm changes the handset’s root password, scans through your SMS database looking for other phones to infect, and will redirect users of a Netherland bank site to a fake site to collect their login info. The only way to get rid of the worm is to restore your iPhone’s firmware. As smartphones become an ever more prevalent part of our lives, it’s clear that such threats are going to be with us for some time to come and are only going to get worse. If you’re going to strike out on the road away from the protections offered by Cupertino, remember to be vigilant.

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Section: Apple , Rumors , iPhone , Carriers , iPhone The idea of tethering coming to the iPhone has been around almost longer than the iPhone itself, and won’t seem to die. In November of 2008, the rumor was it would come at $30 a month with a 5GB cap through AT&T . Yes, that was a whole year ago, and it still hasn’t happened. Then, in January of 2009, another rumor appeared stating we’d be getting iPhone tethering soon . That was ten or so months ago. All this time, tethering has been available on and off with jailbroken iPhones, which goes to show just how much iPhone users want the feature. When tethering does come through AT&T, it will certainly come at a price , which may turn some of these users off. That said, notice that even after a year of these rumors, I say “when” instead of “if.” That’s because AT&T’s CEO Ralph de la Vega made the announcement at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Fransisco this month that tethering for the iPhone 3G is coming “soon,” as reported by Appmodo . While the exact dates of “soon” weren’t defined, I think this time it actually has some truth to it. We’ve waited for more than a year now for AT&T to get their act together and prepare their network, and they’re well aware of our growing impatience.

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If you jailbreak your iPhone, the first thing you ABSOLUTELY MUST DO is change the default filesystem password. When you jailbreak, the filesystem’s password is set to the common password “alpine.” As people usually don’t bother changing this password after performing a jailbreak, it’s really easy for hackers to get access to any jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch

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Apple reportedly has begun shipping its 27-inch iMacs with Intel Core i5 quad-core processors to consumers who ordered the new desktop Macs in October. The company is now notifying buyers the iMacs have shipped from Shanghai. Apple had said it would ship the new Core i5 and i7 quad-core Macs in November. The new iMacs include

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The first iPhone worm has been discovered. It comes to us via Australia, and appears to be limited to that country for now, although it has the potential to spread. It also stars Rick Astley, so to speak. The work changes the iPhone’s wallpaper to an image of the 1980s pop singer, who’s enjoyed a recent resurgence thanks to the Rick-rolling Internet phenomenon . The worm has the ability to break into jailbroken iPhones only. Even if you’ve jailbroken, you still aren’t vulnerable unless you’ve also installed SSH, and not changed the default password after doing so. As a result, only a small fraction of the larger iPhone community is probably susceptible to the “ikee virus,” as it is called in its own source code. Still, it shows that as the platform matures and becomes more widespread, it also becomes the target of more malicious attacks. Most hackers, like any businesspeople, are interested in the bottom line, and part of that involves targeting the largest group of people possible. With millions of users worldwide, the iPhone is definitely an appealing mark. ikee’s creator, a hacker calling himself “ikex,” cites a different explanation for this particular worm’s creation: Why?: Boredom, because i found it so stupid the fact that on my initial scan of my 3G optus range i found 27 hosts running SSH daemons, i could access 26 of them with root:alpine. Doesn’t anyone RTFM anymore? In the case of this worm, which only changes the background wallpaper to the Astley photo with the slogan, “ikee is never going to give you up” across the top, Graham Cluley of SophosLabs suggests it’s really only an experiment: The source code is littered with comments from the author suggesting the worm has been written as an experiment. One of the comments berates affected users for not following instructions when installing SSH, because if they had changed the default password the worm would not have been able to infect them.

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iPhone jailbreakers beware: a malicious worm for the iPhone is making its rounds. iPhone owners with jailbroken devices running a Secure Shell network (SSH) are the only users affected due to the owner not changing the default SSH password, making their device vulnerable to hackers. Once infected, the user will be tricked into thinking they’re being Rickrolled with a wallpaper that features Rick Astley and the words "ikee never gonna give you up."  This isn’t the first time that this hack has been used against unsuspecting iPhone owners, but this new malware is the first to spread from affected devices to other jailbroken iPhones using the default SSH password.  Ars Technica is reporting that there are at least four variants of this worm that are making their rounds. The worm debuted in Australia on the Optus mobile network and has currently spread to Optus iPhones in other countries.  Protecting yourself from this virus is as simple as getting rid of the default password on your Jailbroken iPhone’s SSH feature. You can get the instructions for doing this on the F-Secure website . Sophos anti-virus firm has more details on this worm on their website.  Once again, this shows the potential security risk that could arise from jailbreaking your iPhone/iPod touch. 

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  We hate to put a damper on those jubliant folks that are celebrating the unlocking of the iPhone 3GS but we have no choice. Looks like a worm is doing the rounds and effecting the performance of jailbroken iPhones in Australia. The worm has been created by a hacker called ikee who took advantage of the fact that the default password for jailbroken iPhones is “alpine”! The worm after creeping onto an iPhone system changes the wallpaper to a photo of Rick Astley! Why Astley you ask? There is no accountng for taste we answer!

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