A group of hackers known as Turkish Crime Family have yesterday announced that they have access to over 200 million Hacked Apple iCloud accounts, and will wipe the devices on April 7th if Apple don't pay their ransom demand.
The group provided Motherboard, Vice's technology blog evidence to show that they have access to the hacked Apple iCloud accounts,and are demanding $75,000 in either Bitcoin or Ethereum (both popular crypto-currencies), or $100,000 in iTunes gift cards.
The group are reported to have posted a Youtube video showing how they had access to the iCloud account of an elderly woman, with access to photos, notes and the ability to wipe the device.
The hackers provided screenshots of alleged emails between the group and members of Apple's security team to Motherboard.
These emails from Apple security personnel asked "Are you willing to share a sample of the data set?" to provide proof of the validity of the claim.
"We firstly kindly request you to remove the video that you have uploaded on your YouTube channel as it's seeking unwanted attention, second of all we would like you to know that we do not reward cyber criminals for breaking the law," a further message allegedly from a member of Apple's security team reads.
The validity of their claim is yet to be known, the group are updating their twitter feed, (the latest tweet claiming they have 627 million accounts) but we should consider the security of our major accounts at all times. This includes the likes of Apple and Google accounts where multiple services and devices run from, or where we back up personal data.
What can you do?
The best ways to protect your account is:
- Enable 2 Factor Authentication.
- Have a secure password.
- Reset browser access from iCloud.com advanced settings.
- Always use a passcode.
- Never jailbreak - you don't know who created the software.
