Change your Apple password

[John Connor]

Apple’s iPhones and Apple IDs are a tough nut to crack for hackers, but it’s not impossible. At least that’s what a group of hackers seem to suggest, as they’re currently attempting to blackmail Apple for up to $100,000 before they start remotely wiping millions of iPhones. Can they actually do it? Should you be worried? It’s unclear at this point.

http://bgr.com/2017/03/22/apple-iphone-and-icloud-accounts-hacked/

 

[BarkingGhostar]

$100K seems tiny compared to a) how much money Apple has sitting around in banks (huge), and b) what the threat's perception is worth in damages (tiny). Sounds like amateurs.

 

[KeithP]

If they actually had the ability to do what they say it would be worth far more than they are asking. They probably figured the story was good/convincing enough that Apple would pay them because they had plenty of money and they were asking for a relatively small sum. My guess is they got nothing and Apple knows it.

Worst case scenario is that have some icloud email addresses and passwords from other data breaches where people haven't changed their passwords yet.

-KeithP

 

[Red Squirrel]

This is the problem with the whole idea that phones have to be tied to a centrally managed system. If they could just act as stand alone devices then a single server/service being compromised could not put every user at risk. Android could more or less be targeted the same way too, it's just that it's less popular.

Though I would be really surprised if someone managed to compromise the login servers and get everyone's login info, I'd imagine this is something Apple takes very seriously, and the passwords are more than likely hashed with bcrypt or similar. Though hashing only means it takes longer to get the password not that it's impossible.

 

[John Connor]

Android is tied to Google and if Google ever gets haxxed. OMG! That would be a HUGE headliner!