( CNN ) -- Since the U.S . Copyright Office declared last month that it 's legal to jailbreak your iPhone , lots of iPhone users have been doing just that -- nearly 9 percent of them as of late July . But jailbreaking your iPhone -- tweaking it to run applications not approved by Apple -- is serious business . That 's not just because jailbreaking can void your Apple warranty , but because it can put you at risk of data theft , malware or other significant problems . In November , TUAW reported that a Dutch hacker proved this point by using port scanning -- using software to probe a network host for open ports -- to find jailbroken phones . From there , he sent unsuspecting users a message that read , 'Your iPhone 's been hacked because it 's really insecure ! Right now , I can access all your files . ' `` He then directed his victims to PayPal and requested €5 ( about $ 10 ) in exchange for instructions to remove his hack . At least he let his victims know they 'd been hacked . Your iPhone wo n't notify you about that on its own . If you jailbreak your iPhone , one crucial way to protect yourself is to change the phone 's default passwords . But be forewarned : It 's not a simple process . In the latest episode of the Boulder Open Podcast , hosts Dave Taylor and Michael Sitarzewski discussed this concern . Recently both of them jailbroke their iPhone 4s . `` I 've got ta say , this was not a compelling experience . It was complicated as heck to figure out how to jailbreak the phone and then change the default passwords , '' said Taylor , a longtime tech expert . `` Once you jailbreak your phone , it 's accessible via laptops . Someone can log into your phone and monkey with it . The process for changing the passwords is really quite a production . Like a lot of the open-source technology I 've used in past 30 years , this is not something you want to get involved with unless you 're willing to spend the time to learn how to do this safely . '' A `` root password '' is a fundamental part of the geeky Unix back-end of the iPhone 's slick operating system . It 's something that non-jailbroken users never have to worry about because Apple 's walled-garden iPhone experience prevents this particular kind of incursion . Sitarzewski explained , `` Every Unix system on the planet has a root account , and the default password for that account is the same on every iPhone on the planet ( 'alpine ' ) . `` When you jailbreak your phone , sometimes one of the requirements for an app is secure shell ( SSH ) . That 's the only way you 're opening yourself up to this particular vulnerability . So you do n't absolutely have to change your root password if you do n't install SSH protocols -- but it 's a good idea anyway . '' Taylor added : `` Not only is the default root password the same on every iPhone , but the default mobile user account password also is the same on every iPhone ( 'dottie ' ) . So you should change them both . '' If you venture beyond Apple 's iPhone garden walls , you can follow these instructions to change your default passwords from the Just Another iPhone Blog . Alternatively , TiPb offers instructions on using the JailbreakMe mobile site to simplify the jailbreaking process . They note that as of early August , some jailbroken iPhone users running iOS4 reported problems with the terminal ( a command-line interface that lets you access system-level functions ) , and pointed to a TiPb discussion forum for instructions on fixing that problem .
If you jailbreak your iPhone , it is more susceptible to hackers . Changing the default password on your iPhone is complicated , but worth the security . The default root and default mobile user account passwords are the same on every phone .