iPhone Worm Author Awarded Job as an iPhone Developer

Friday, November 27, 2009

The original Rickrolls worm author, Australian Ashley Towns, after receiving death threats and hate mails for the chaos he’s caused in the iPhone jailbreaking community, has announced on his twitter post (currently protected) that he has gotten a job at Mogeneration. Mogeneration is a company that develops iPhone apps for clients.

Apparently, Towns’ venture into iPhone hacking has garnered him some fame. However, many people, including security experts at Sophos do not believe his work to exploit iPhone security should be awarded. From Sopho’s blog:

“Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think virus writers shouldn’t be allowed to rehabilitate and do something worthwhile with their lives. But it jars with me that Towns has shown no regret for what he did, and that now his utterly irresponsible behaviour appears to have been rewarded. Will Towns be offering a token $5 compensation to all those he infected for the inconvenience he caused? I doubt it.”

Towns has set a bad example for would-be iPhone hackers. His actions should not have been rewarded. Instead his decision to release a worm to the entire world may cause others to follow suit. He should have held a demonstration to prove that he can exploit the vulnerability of a jailbroken iPhone, instead of releasing it into the wild. Now, innocent (or should we say careless) jailbroken iPhone users may get their identity stolen by the really bad guys that want to steal your money. The malicious bank-account-stealing worm modified from the original Rickrolls worm is just the most recent example.

Hiring an infamous iPhone hacker may be good for the development team. But I wonder how Mogeneration’s public image will be affected. Will Mogeneration get more business or less business as a result of hiring Towns? Who knows? But one thing is for sure, Mogeneration will have to deal with the public’s contempt for rewarding a hacker that has made jailbreaking much dangerous than before.

Via Mashable.

This is a post by The Apps Machine