Apple iCloud Hacked and more

[FuzzyLumpkins]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzinga...-apples-image/

iCloud Hacking Could Tarnish Apple's Image
Louis Bedigian Louis Bedigian, Contributor
A Brief History of Apple Hackingsee photos

Click for full photo gallery: A Brief History of Apple Hacking

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) reportedly allowed a hacker to take over a journalist’s iCloud account by deceiving the company’s tech support team. What affect will this have on the future of Apple’s success?

(Read this to see if Amazon Game Studios can overtake Zynga.)

In June, Apple changed its website to show that Macs are not impervious to computer threats such as viruses. While it is impossible for a Mac to contract a virus that was built for a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows machine, it is wholly possible for someone to engineer a Mac-specific Trojan, as well as other forms of malicious software.

Last February, The Wall Street Journal discovered that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) had found a way to bypass the security features of Apple’s Safari web browser to track the sites that users visit. While the blame was ultimately placed on Google, the situation did not bode well for Apple either, as this was not the first time that Safari was found to have holes in its security.

Apple has repeatedly released patches and updates to fix the various security issues that plague iOS. Despite these concerns, one researcher found that iOS is still more secure than Android.

That might change after the researcher reads about this story from Mac Rumors, which recounts the nightmare of Wired reporter Mat Honan, whose iCloud account was hacked.

“I know how it was done now,” Honan wrote on his blog. “Confirmed with both the hacker and Apple. It wasn’t password related. They got in via Apple tech support and some clever social engineering that let them bypass security questions.”

This situation could cause irreparable harm to Apple, which touts iCloud as an “automatic and effortless” offer that integrates into users’ apps. The iPhone maker heavily promotes the fact that iCloud allows users to backup and restore their data.

Along with those perks, iCloud also enables users to remotely wipe their devices in the event that their computer, tablet, or smartphone is stolen. With this feature, the hacker attempted to delete all of Honan’s data.

On his personal blog, Honan said that Apple is attempting to recover the data from his MacBook but he will not know the outcome until this afternoon.

[leemajors]

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/...n-hacking/all/

In many ways, this was all my fault. My accounts were daisy-chained together. Getting into Amazon let my hackers get into my Apple ID account, which helped them get into Gmail, which gave them access to Twitter. Had I used two-factor authentication for my Google account, it’s possible that none of this would have happened, because their ultimate goal was always to take over my Twitter account and wreak havoc. Lulz.

Had I been regularly backing up the data on my MacBook, I wouldn’t have had to worry about losing more than a year’s worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of my daughter, or do ents and e-mails that I had stored in no other location.

Those security lapses are my fault, and I deeply, deeply regret them.

But what happened to me exposes vital security flaws in several customer service systems, most notably Apple’s and Amazon’s. Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information — a partial credit card number — that Apple used to release information. In short, the very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform iden y verification. The disconnect exposes flaws in data management policies endemic to the entire technology industry, and points to a looming nightmare as we enter the era of cloud computing and connected devices.

[ElNono]

Apple Suspends Phone-Based Password Resets After Hack

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Omg, lefty probably got hemorrhage in his head after reading this one