Jailbraking your iPhone may get your PC into Trouble
Apr 17th, 2010 | Category: SecurityAn application that offers to unlock iPhones is actually designed to hijack internet connections on compromised Windows PCs, security watchers warn.
Spam messages direct potential victims to a website that offers links to download a Windows executable called blackra1n.exe. The application claims to offer an unlock utility but instead it changes default DNS settings on infected Windows PCs, hijacking internet connections in the process.
Identified by BitDefender as Trojan.BAT.AACL, this piece of malware comes as a Windows batch file packed alongside the iPhone jailbreaking application. The Trojan attempts to change the preferred DNS server address for several possible Internet connections on the users’ computers to 188.210.[REMOVED]. This allows the malware creators to intercept the victims’ calls to reach Internet sites and to redirect them to their own malware-laden versions of those sites.
The precise purpose of the malware in this case seems to be to infect compromised Windows PCs with yet more crud, earning hackers affiliate revenues in the process. The Trojan affects only the host Windows PC, not any connected iPhone.
