Hackers allegedly hacked Apple users' email and iCloud accounts. A ransom of $75,000 in BitCoin was demanded
Hackers' tools are becoming more and more sophisticated, and not only from a "technical" point of view. Wicked are also the strategies used to extort money from the poor victims. Especially companies know something about it, as they are forced to pay billions of dollars to repair the damages suffered.
In the last recorded case, cyber criminals didn't directly address the affected people, making money requests, but their "provider". As Motherboard reports on its website, some hackers are allegedly holding the data of millions of Apple users. The "Turkish Crime Family", as the hackers call themselves, have asked the Californian company to pay within a few days a ransom of $75,000 in Bitcoins or through iTunes Gift Cards worth $100,000. If Apple fails to honor the "commitment", the hackers will not delete the personal information of the victims in their possession, obtained by hacking email and iCloud accounts. And that's not all. The cybercriminals are also threatening to remotely wipe users' devices.
A bad story that shows how devious the hackers' modus operandi has now become in order to increasingly monetize the various hacking attempts. It is not known, from what we learn, if this breach, which would be sensational given the numbers, is actually true or is just a shady ploy to get Apple to pay the ransom. The hackers, in an email sent to the Californian company, would claim to have compromised between 300 and 500 million accounts. Numbers that bring to mind the intrusions suffered by Yahoo!.
Date set on April 7
The deadline set by the hackers would be April 7. As a demonstration, the hackers have uploaded a video on YouTube. In the clip, cybercriminals show that they are able to enter a user's iCloud profile and be able to remotely delete the data contained within it. Past this date, the criminals will kick off their plan of attack.
Apple's response: all false
After the article published by Motherboard, Apple's response arrives, denying any data theft on iCloud and branding the statements of the hacker group "Turkish Crime Family" as nonsense. In addition, the Cupertino company assures users that checks are being carried out to make sure everything is okay and invites people to use complex passwords to make life difficult for cyber criminals.
This is not a bluff
The portal ZDnet has had the opportunity to view part of the list of accounts stolen by hackers and confirms that they are true. The site has contacted users who have confirmed the authenticity of the data provided and have immediately taken countermeasures. So it's not a bluff as Apple said, but a real risk. Let's see how the situation will evolve in the coming days.