Earlier today I reported on news of the iPhone virus that Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner presented in the Black Hat conference in New York. I also posted a temporary iPhone virus patch for those who were paranoid about their iPhones getting hacked. I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails from people and just thought I’d make a FAQ post.

iPhone Virus FAQ’s

1. How does the iPhone virus work? It works through SMS. The attacker must know your phone number. All the attacker needs to do is send some characters in an SMS message (multiple SMS messages are sent, but you only see one) and they can control your iPhone.
2. Should I be worried about the iPhone virus? As of right now you don’t need to worry, but if Apple does not release an update soon this can get out of hand. Charlie Miller has revealed how the SMS virus works, so many hackers (more than 4,000) now know how this works. It won’t be long until a software comes out that can easily allow others to send iPhone viruses using the SMS Exploit.
3. Should I be mad at Charlie Miller for releasing this exploit to other hackers? No you shouldn’t. He gave a warning to Apple 6 weeks ago and Apple has done nothing to prevent the exploit.
4. If or once this virus gets big, how do I stay safe? Either turn your iPhone off, put your iPhone in airplane mode, OR use this iPhone virus patch. Apple will most likely have an update out before it gets big.
5. Did Apple release an update yet to patch this vulnerability? Nope, I’ll update you on QuickPWN.com once there is an update.

The iPhone virus is not big yet! Once it does spread I’m sure it will spread quickly by getting peoples’ phone numbers from address books. I just thought I’d make these posts in advance so that once this gets big iPhone users can be prepared.

I’ve been getting a lot of comments and e-mails from people asking about the iPhone 3.0 release time and how to update to iPhone 3.0 and thought it would be useful to make a short FAQ post to answer everyone’s questions.

1. When will the iPhone 3.0 firmware update be released?

The iPhone 3.0 software update will be released tomorrow, June 17th, 2009.

2. How do I update to iPhone  3.0?

Just plug in your iPhone or iPod Touch, open the iTunes application and then click “Check for Update”. iTunes will check for the latest iPhone 3.0 update and let you download the appropriate firmware for your device.

3. Do I need to pay for iPhone 3.0?

iPhone 3.0 firmware will be completely free for all iPhone owners. iPod Touch owners will have to pay an extra $9.95 fee to download the iPhone 3.0 Update.

4. Will I be able to jailbreak iPhone 3.0? When will the jailbreak be released?

Yes,  thanks to the iPhone Dev Team you will be able to jailbreak iPhone 3.0 firmware on all iPhones and iPod Touches except for iPhone 3G S. You will not be able to jailbreak or unlock the new iPhone 3G S yet. The iPhone Dev Team plans to release the jailbreak after the iPhone 3.0 update is released. Just keep checking back here if you want to download the jailbreak, I’ll make a post with the download links once it’s out.

5. Will I be able to unlock iPhone 3.0?

Yes, you will be able to unlock iPhone 3.0 using the Dev Team’s yellowsn0w software. yellowsn0w works with the latest baseband and it’s safe to update.  @MuscleNerd will be doing a live demo of this on his twitter feed today, feel free to watch it!

If you have any other questions relating to iPhone OS 3.0, please post it in the iPhone OS 3.0 forums.

iPhone 3.0 Beta 3 jailbroken

On April 14 Apple released iPhone OS 3.0 beta 3 build 7A280f to developers. You know the drill! With each update comes a new jailbreak. Even though iPhone OS 3.0 is still in beta, developers still want to keep the jailbreak. Especially developers that develop for the jailbroken app store. As of this post, iPhone 3.0 Beta 3 jailbreak has been released! Remember, this is an “unofficial release” as it is not created by the iPhone Dev Team. The latest iPhone 3.0 beta 3 firmware has noticeably improved in speed and performance so it’s worth the update. As of right now you can only jailbreak on the iPhone 3.0 Beta 3, iPhone 3G 3.0 beta 3, and iPod Touch 1st Gen 3.0 beta 3 firmware. Support for iPod Touch 2nd gen has not been added. Saurik is working on adding support for Cydia on iPhone OS 3.0 so it won’t work yet. Jailbreaking with this release will install the Icy app created by RipDev. Once you’ve jailbroken you can launch Icy, refresh the sources and install OpenSSH to SSH into it. If you need any help please join the iPhone OS 3.0 discussion board and you can get help there. The download is available only for Windows users.

Warning for iPhone 3G – yellowsn0w users: This will permanently block the yellowsn0w unlock

Note: This is BETA software, and many jailbroken apps don’t work with it yet. Continue discussion in the iPhone OS 3.0 forum.

Follow @QuickPWN on Twitter to catch the latest.

Source: iPhoneApps.ru