"Rick Astley" worm hitting iPhones

USA TODAY -- The first worm to infect the Apple iPhone is on the loose.

Australia's ABC News online reports that the program -- known as ikee -- changes the phone's wallpaper to a picture of 80s singer Rick Astley with the message, keying off Astley's song, that says "Ikee is never going to give you up."

The worm is also known as ash, ikex, ike_x, or @ikeex, Computerworld's IT Blogwatch reports.

It only affects "jail-broken" phones in which the user has removed Apple's protection mechanisms to allow it to run any software.

The virus, so far confined to Australia, is not harmful, unless you can't bear the sight of singer Astley. The music video of his hit Never Gonna Give You Up often pops up unexpectedly on Internet sites in a prank known as "Rickrolling."

The BBC says experts, however, believe that the new worm could spawn more malicious variants.

Its 21-year-old creator, Ashley Towns, who lives with his family south of Sydney, tells Australia's ABC News Online that he created the virus to raise the issue of security.

"This virus pretty much exploits people's laziness to change their password," he says.

It can be removed by changing the phone's password and deleting some files.

(Posted by Doug Stanglin)