In a surprising new development, 21 year old Ashley Towns, the mastermind behind the first ever worm to eat into Apple's popular iPhone, jailbreak ones, has managed to bag a job as a software developer for mobile phones.

Towns is the hacker credited with creating the harmless Ikee virus, which would attack jailbreak iPhones and end up changing the phone's current wallpaper to a picture of 80s one hit wonder pop singer Rick Astley. He has now been appointed by Australian firm Mogeneration as an iPhone application developer.

Although Ikee was not malicious in itself, it did manage to uncover a very prominent vulnerability of jailbreak iPhones which paved way for more malicious viruses, including the latest one which has hit devices all across Netherlands, targeting users of ING Bank's online banking service.

"It leaves a nasty taste that he has been rewarded like this, yet has not even expressed regret for his actions", Graham Cluley of Security firm Sophos was quoted as saying.

While many have been critical of the company's move, Mogeneration is quick to defend itself and its decision. "We interviewed Ashley, assessed him with our iPhone developer test - which he passed with flying colors - and we employed him today", said a spokesperson of the company.