Just recently, an Australian by the name of Ashley Towns released an iPhone worm into the wild, which essentially Rick-rolled the user if their phone met certainly vulnerability criteria. Now, however, Towns has managed to get a job with a development firm, escaping any legal punishment he should receive.
The worm, named the Ikee worm, wasn't malicious in intent, but that's not to say it didn't come without any dangerous repercussions. As posted by Graham Cluley on a Sophos blog, the worm contained a few bugs, and also built the path for a more dangerous worm, dubbed the 'Duh' worm. The Duh worm didn't Rick-roll people, but rather attempted to turn affected iPhones into a botnet, and steal personal data. This is why many people are shaking their heads over the decision to hire Towns as a developer, at least without giving him some sort of punishment.
The firm that hired him is mogeneration, which currently has a number of commercially available iPhone apps. Interestingly, the company made a post on the worm recently also, somewhat defending Towns and reassuring users that they would be fine.
Cluley on the Sophos blog makes a good point, stating, "There are plenty of young coders out there who would not have acted so stupidly, are just as worthy of an opportunity inside a software development company, and are actually quite likely to be better coders than Towns who made a series of blunders with his code." At the very least, it hopefully means Towns will be keeping on the straight and narrow from here on in.
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