Hacked Apple Id, What To Do In This Case – The Real Story
With the development of cloud services, more and more users are abandoning physical media, which forces security experts to constantly develop new systems for protecting confidential data. However, this coin has two sides.
In this article, we will tell a real story that clearly demonstrates the consequences of neglect of recommendations for protecting our own data. It will once again be about hacking Apple ID account, which is the exclusive identifier of the owner of the apple device. be it iPhone, iPad or Mac. It is worth noting that cases like the one described below happen everywhere, but this does not prevent fraudsters from finding new victims and earning from their frivolity.
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So, a Belarusian user turned to our editorial office, located in the city of Minsk, whose iPhone 6 Plus was blocked in a fraudulent way by stealing an Apple ID.
How exactly third parties got access to the Apple ID account is unknown, most likely, the device owner used a password that was too simple or entered it on a phishing site. By the way, mail, which is the Apple ID username of our hero, looked like ivanov@yandex.ru, and the password was Ivanov1988. As you can see, picking up such a password is not so difficult.
One way or another, access to iCloud was lost, the smartphone was blocked, and a fraudster sent a letter full of spelling and punctuation errors to the device’s owner’s email. In it, the fraudster offered to contact him and clarify the conditions for unlocking the account, otherwise he threatened to block Apple ID forever. In this case, the blocked iPhone 6 simply turns into a “brick”.
In the next letter, the ultimatum was described in detail. the owner of the smartphone had to pay 1000 rubles for a certain range of services, including unlocking all devices tied to a hacked Apple ID, as well as instructions for protecting it in the future.
Not the largest amount and ready-made message templates suggest that such scams are turned into fraudsters (or groups of people) by no means infrequently, and this type of earnings has long been put on an industrial footing.
Contacting Apple
What, then, will a user who honestly buys a smartphone and does not want to pay extra to ransomware who does not provide any guarantees? That’s right, he’ll turn to Apple, which naturally has no representative office in Belarus. Despite the fact that Apple is famous (in a good way) for its customer support service, a phone call to the Moscow office of the company involves going through all the circles of bureaucratic hell. waiting, switching to the right department, waiting again, switching to the right specialist, waiting.
In order to prove your ownership and unlock your account or device, you must have a check issued by an official Apple retailer when you buy an iPhone or iPad.
As a last resort, they will be asked to answer the security questions entered during registration of Apple ID.
In our case, there were no checks or intelligible answers to control questions, the result was a 100 bill for a call to Moscow and zero effect.
Considering the fact that fraudsters asked for unlocking only 15 (equivalent), as well as the presence of the most important data for the user on the locked account, it was decided to replenish the scammers budget by the required amount. Fortunately, after sending the transfer, our hero received a letter from scammers with detailed instructions for unlocking the account and instructions for activating the two-step verification of Apple ID (which, by the way, does not work in Belarus).
How to protect Apple ID from “hijacking”
What should be done in order not to become a victim of scammers? Everything is very simple. just follow the recommendations of Apple, which are easy to follow.
Firstly, You must set a strong password for your Apple ID account and do not enter it anywhere except your own Apple services.
Secondly, certainly remember (and better write down) the answers to all three control questions.
Thirdly. completely secure your account using a two-step verification system (or two-factor authentication), if one is supported in your region.
On this topic:
How to crack Apple ID using phishing emails
Phishing (Eng. fishing. fishing). a type of fraud on the Internet, the purpose of which is to gain access to user logins and passwords.
We strongly recommend that you check the email address of the sender of the letter that came to your mail. Fraudsters often create a letter template and text identical to the one used by Apple, but replace links to their own sites, which, in turn, steal Apple user ID data.
An example of a phishing page (not related to Apple), to which the user goes from the letter and enters (gives the attackers) a username and password:
Real Apple Email Addresses
The following is a list of valid Apple email addresses from which it’s safe to follow links:
