Attack on Apple: ransomware hackers target 300 million iPhones

While Android users have been having a hard time due to continuous cyber attacks, it seems that hackers now point their daggers to Apple. Yesterday the secret conversation between the Apple IT specialist and a hacker affiliating himself to the group of cyber criminals called “Turkish Crime Family” was leaked. The offender threatens Apple corporation to pay 75 000 USD ransom in bitcoins or $100 000 in iTunes gift cards. Otherwise, the felons will wipe out 300 million compromised iCloud accounts on April 7th^[1]. Is it an another false alarm or it is time to secure your iPhone?

The so-called “Turkish Crime Family” is convinced that Apple would comply with their demands as they claim to have access to supposedly 300 million accounts of iCloud^[2]. The fraudsters present an extensive list of email accounts which are to be hacked unless the corporation transmits the money. It is suspected that the emails have been obtained from a previous LinkedIn data breach. The latter program lets users store their photos, videos, documents and monitor updates for crucial programs. Such claims certainly alert millions of iCloud users, but what is Apple’s response? It has not officially confirmed the authenticity of the supposed cache file which grants access to the accounts, nonetheless, it states that neither the company nor iCloud was hacked. Apple representative asked the hackers to send an extract of the supposed cache file^[3]. However, further details are not known whether the fraudster complied. The rumors about a pre-set hack quickly spread throughout the cyber space and sparked many theories about the motive, offenders’ identity, etc.

If you follow IT news, the name of Apple data breach incidents might have been a rarity. However, there have been previous attempts to compromise the company and wheedle out money both, from the company and its clients^[4]. In August 2016, after several vital vulnerabilities have been reported, the corporation quickly issued updates. In this case, Apple does not seem to take extreme security measures, such hackers’ threats should not be ignored. Cyber villains might trade the obtained account credentials from previous hacks with other members of the cyber criminal world. If you tend to use the same password for several accounts you are more than likely to be targeted^[5]. Though in this case, the credibility of such claims is questionable, it should encourage you to change the passwords. You can also use password managers if handling several dozens of accounts is too complicated.