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Hackers Remotely Locking Some Macs and iOS Devices in Australia for Ransom
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You probably mix Australia with Austria. This is something that used to happen a lot but it does actually happen only very infrequently nowadays.
Population:
Australia: 23 M
Austria: 8.5 M = about Sidney + Melbourne
Size:
Australia: 3.00 M mi² = 0.8 times the US; world rank: 6
Austria: 0.03 M mi²; world rank: 115
Geographic position:
Australia: entirely in southern hemisphere, center at 27°S, 133°E
Austria: in Europe, center at 47° 19' 48"N, 13° 19' 48"E
Trivia:
Australia: home of kangaroos
Austria: no kangaroos in wild life
But hey, we have got a lot of mountains, so it might not be just that easy to drive over to someone's home, as well.
That's all very well, but do you speak Australian?
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Twenty years ago, I would have said "welcome". Today, not so much!
Hmm this makes Mr. Schiller look a little dumb. Maybe he should focus less on android faults and more on OSX/iOS vulnerabilities
Too bad, used to like him.
Too bad, used to like him.
Probably wouldn't deter them. Most of them are convinced they'll never get caught.
They sure cause untold misery for us all, don't they?
Hmm this makes Mr. Schiller look a little dumb. Maybe he should focus less on android faults and more on OSX/iOS vulnerabilities
Too bad, used to like him.
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He has always come across as a bit of a jerk to me. Loves to bash everyone elses products instead of just promoting his own.
Untold misery?.. drama queen or what.. u have to change a password.. whooppee doo.... Try having no shoes, and the nearest well is 10km away... Surrounded by wild animals.. jeez....
Why's it a hassle on iOS? I much prefer their iOS app than their Android app. Or do you mean compared to Mac app?
What has likely happened is the person(s) that have been affected used their icloud.com email address to sign up to another website that was recently hacked (like eBay). Then, they used the same password for eBay that they use for their iCloud account.
So all the "hacker" is really doing is getting a hold of the dump of username/passwords, sorting for commonly used services (icloud.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc), then simply trying the password to see if it lets them in.
No real "hacking" is likely happening here.
It sounds like you have a tough life, but hacking is definitely no joke, and the estimates of the global cost of that to businesses large and small, ranges from hundreds of billions to $1 trillion annually, and guess who's paying for that in the end? And that's not mentioning resulting job losses, or the inconvenience caused to millions of people, when essential servers are down.
Feel free to scan thru a small sampling of links below, re the impact and cost of hacking.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...to-wake-up-and-smell-the-hackers-9422300.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/risks/cost.html
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703859304576307664174667924
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/hackers-jobs_n_3652893.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-inte...rget-hack-really-cost-the-numbers-trickle-in/
Gah... I hate reading about hacking activities, especially ones like this that are now talking ransom. It makes me want to disconnect from the Internet entirely.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles...0001424127887324077704578358760931327672.html
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/21/schiller-security-report/
http://www.droid-life.com/2013/09/1...hone-5c-is-android-free-you-damn-right-it-is/
http://9to5mac.com/2013/10/01/phil-schiller-calls-out-samsungs-note-3-benchmarking-shenanigans/
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What a dumb thing to say. Just because some kids used their passwords on multiple sites and got hacked, you are proud of not using industry-leading protection and services for your device?
You know all the people affected by this issue and their age? Your first sentence could easily describe your own post.
FYI this is deeply unlikely to be "via iCloud" since it couldn't remotely cause a message like that to appear.
Most likely a piece of malware masquerading as doing activation lock.
Most likely a piece of malware masquerading as doing activation lock.
Not so...
"If you cant find your device, use Lost Mode right away to lock it with a passcode, display a custom message on the screen, and keep track of its location."
No, that is not what happened. My friend had a very strong password that was only ever used for iCloud, and was hacked.
It was not from another website, and the password was not vulnerable to dictionary attacks.
Initially Apple said they were are that someone is hacking Find my iPhone and and there was no solution yet.
We could not find any way around it, every device linked to her iCloud account was bricked. I'm guessing thousands of people were affected by this, probably all simultaneously. Everyone seems I have been hit at about the same time the morning (4am or so).
9 hours later Apple called back and walked through the (complicated and not always possible) process of bypassing the "lost phone" password and restoring a backup. She didn't loose any data, but it sounded like some people will loose data because of this.
Since it seems to depend what country you purchased the phone in, I wonder if some vulnerability involving a database of hardware serial numbers was used for the attack.
Some people have also suggested a nationwide ISP based man in the middle attack, apparently a recent version of iTunes was vulnerable to this?
My gut feeling is it came from a forum... If these people are members of an Australian forum and they used their Apple ID for a log/pass, because lets face it, not many want to remember a different pass for each log in they may have, then the hacker only had to crack the forum and assume emails and passes would open other areas, such as the email account where they can see account activations etc, to know where else to try...
I use 3 'main' passwords, each with increasing complexity, the basic version for all sales, forums etc... Another for emails etc and the third for banking etc... I'm not saying its totally secure, but it sure isn't going to be guessed by the average pleb.
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Feck, I should have read further, though I was probably still typing when others were saying the same
Though a 'forum' would explain why it was more country localised, such as 'petrol heads of NSW' would attract people from New South Wales
I use 3 'main' passwords, each with increasing complexity, the basic version for all sales, forums etc... Another for emails etc and the third for banking etc... I'm not saying its totally secure, but it sure isn't going to be guessed by the average pleb.
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Feck, I should have read further, though I was probably still typing when others were saying the same
Though a 'forum' would explain why it was more country localised, such as 'petrol heads of NSW' would attract people from New South Wales