Dutch hacker accesses jailbroken iPhones, requests €5

I just installed SBSettings and turning SSH off is never persistent (when I reboot, SSH turns back "ON"). After doing some research, this is by design. I simply changed my root password, best way to be sure.

This "hack" is exactly as inventive as leaving the default password on your wireless access point.

On the flip side: if you are jailbreaking your phone and don't know WTF you are doing then you had it coming. Likely the next "hacker" will change your root password and charge you €5 to tell you what it is. Or will just "hack" your iPhone, monitor traffic and clean out your bank account for you.

Pro Tip for the kids: Look before you leap.

An update may be in order to reflect the fact that he's posted instructions on how to close the security hole and has refunded everyone's money. Regardless, this has to be illegal in some way, right?

Vulnerable for the 30 minutes a month at home I have it turned on? Where else would you have it on? You certainly won't be using it driving around town or in the supermarket.

Changing the password can also cause chaos with some applications.

Don't change your password.
Get OpenSSH or SBSettings and turn off SSH. Simple as that.

I don't know if this is useful to anyone but.
****How to change your root password ****
Assuming you have a Jailbroken iPhone
1. Install Open SSH via Cydia
2. Install Mobile Terminal via Cydia
3. Restart iPhone
4. Start Mobile Terminal and type "login root"
5. Enter default root password "alpine"
6. Enter "passwd" command hit return
7. Enter new password, confirm password.
8. Done, your phone is now safe.
Remember there are two passwords one for the mobile account and root account. You can change the mobile if you want also. if you want to do that just skip step 4 and continue with the rest. As you are already in the mobile account when you initially start Mobile Terminal.

If I was to improve this article in any way, it would be to add a few clear words of assistance to those who were hacked. It would be something like: "We won't charge you five euros to help you beat this hack you can either change your password like so .... or plug into iTunes and do a restore thusly ... "

LOL .. hacker .. LOL ..

This is like buying a house only to have someone walk in the front door and say "Hey man, did you know every house on this block shares the same key? Gimme $5 bucks and I'll tell you how to change your lock".

Let's think about it for a minute now. Who would be held responsible?
The homeowner or the people who built a block full of houses with the same damn key?

It is pretty obvious that if I move into a new house I can make a reasonable assumption that every key is different and I don't have to change the lock right away.

So, there is an obvious design flaw in the jailbreak process. If a graphical program like Pwnage Tool or Cydia installs an SSH server and does not force the user to change the root password then incidents like this are guaranteed to happen.

It should not be up to the user to figure out that they have to change the password.

The slightest understanding of usability or design would have prevented this security problem... sigh.

I wonder if this is specific to certain carriers only. I have a jailbroken iPhone, with ssh enabled and have changed the password.

I have never been able to ssh into my iPhone over AT&T's network, only over WiFi. I'd always assumed that AT&T is blocking the incoming port there. I can certainly ssh over 3G back to my office computer, and I've used the ip address my firewall reports for the iPhone as the reverse.

This guy supposedly port scanned random iPhone ip addresses and found enough to make news by hacking into them. Is TMobile in Europe not firewalled? Is my assumption that AT&T is incorrect?

Gonna need some more investigation.

To make sure U.S. citizens (the only ones who read this blog, most certainly) don't think the hacker is one of them.

:-D