Apple iPhone Security Problems: Company Shuns Claims Hackers Can Remotely Delete Millions of iPhone Data
Apple is disregarding a hacker group's claims that they have breached data from more than 500 million iPhone accounts and that they can remotely delete those if the company does not pay the "ransom."
A representative of the Cupertino, California company dismissed the claims and told Fortune: "There have not been any breaches in any of Apple's systems including iCloud and Apple ID. The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained from previously compromised third-party services."
Earlier this week, Motherboard reported that a hacker group, who calls themselves the "Turkish Crime Family," threatened Apple, saying they had acquired a cache of compromised iCloud and Apple accounts and passwords. The group reportedly demands for some sort of ransom to be paid in exchange for the guarantee that the data in the affected accounts will not be tampered with.
The same Motherboard report mentioned that the hacker group is demanding that Apple pay them $75,000 worth of crypto-currency, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, or a $100,000 amount in iTunes gift cards. Once paid, the group promised to destroy their cache of the alleged iPhone emails and passwords.
A member of the Turkish Family Crime reportedly told Motherboard, "I just want my money and thought this would be an interesting report that a lot of Apple customers would be interested in reading and hearing."
The report has it that the hacker group uploaded a YouTube video where they demonstrated opening a compromised iCloud account which purportedly belongs to an elderly woman. According to Motherboard, the video showed that the hackers had the ability to "remotely wipe" the data from the said account, which contained mostly backed-up photos.
Hackers claim that they have also established communication with an Apple security system staff prior to the release of the Motherboard report. From the said conversation, the Apple rep reportedly asked for proof of the cached list as well as requested that the mentioned YouTube video demonstration uploaded be removed.
From the same Fortune article, it looks like Apple has really seen parts of the list of cached accounts since a company staff member reportedly claimed that, for the most part, it matches the data breached on LinkedIn that happened last year. So the possibility that the data is just being recycled for continuous plot or scam is also being considered.
Members of the Turkish Crime Family set an ultimatum, giving Apple until Friday, April 7, to settle the payment they were demanding because if not, they are threatening to remotely delete the data from millions of iPhone accounts.
However, the Apple spokesperson who talked with Fortune maintains that they are "actively monitoring to prevent unauthorized access to user accounts and are working with law enforcement to identify the criminals involved."
