Hackers Who Remotely Locked Apple Devices For Ransom Arrested

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Posted June 9, 2014 at 11:46pm by iClarified

Two weeks ago, ago, some Australian Mac and iPhone owners woke up to their Apple devices being remotely locked via iCloud. On the device, there would be a message requesting money be sent to a PayPal account in order to have the device unlocked.

Today, hackers who were behind similar attacks have been arrested, according to a report from the Sydney Morning Herald (via MacRumors). At this time, it is unclear if the hackers are the same ones who demanded the ransom from the Australian owners of Apple Devices.

Initially, some suggested Apple's own iCloud servers had been hacked, however Apple denied such claims. The report notes that the two primarily gained access to Apple IDs through phishing pages and social engineering techniques.

Russian authorities say they have detained two young hackers who are alleged to have hijacked Apple devices and digitally held them ransom for a sum of money before relinquishing control.

The hackers - aged 17 and 23 - were detained in the course of "operational activities" by the Russian Interior Ministry, Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs said. They are both residents of the Southern Administrative District of Moscow and one has already been tried before, it said.

The hackers were reportedly caught on surveillance cameras when they went to the ATM to withdraw ransom money from victims.

We recommend that you set up two-fact authentication as well as having a passcode on your device in order to prevent this from happening to you!

Hackers Who Remotely Locked Apple Devices For Ransom Arrested

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Great! - June 10, 2014 at 1:50am

At least we know that iCloud is secure because these hackers used phishing and social engineering to obtain passwords instead. This can happen to any of your accounts' passwords, so use different passwords for all accounts and if possible 2 factor authentication. On the other hand, if you want to avoid 99% of smartphone malware, then never ever use an Android device. These malware can record videos, photos, audio, location info, swipes, keyboard entries etc without your knowledge.

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Russell - June 10, 2014 at 10:25pm

Using phishing and social engineering to obtain passwords works best on the non tech savvy iOS users.

gamerscul9870 - June 10, 2014 at 12:36am

At least they helped all us bypass icloud. Shame on them for the rest, well done Apple.