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This is something many people would never imagine happening, but it has happened. Over the weekend of July 3rd - July 4th, iTunes was hacked.
Who is the man of the moment? Mr Thuat Nguyen, a Vietnamese developer.
Nguyen managed to boost 42 applications owned by him to the top 50 in the paid electronic books category by hacking a series of accounts owned by many members of iTunes. On each account, he has purchased applications owned by him as much as the account funds would allow.
[slide]http://i50.tinypic.com/5yvm1u.jpg[/slide]
Looking through various tweets, some people claim to have lost as much as $200 on applications they have not personally bought. Some people have managed to have the transactions reversed by their credit card companies, too many users however are having difficulties getting their funds back.
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Apple, upon realising this breach, banned Nguyen for violations including fraudulent purchase patterns,which broke the developer Program License Agreement. With this, all of the applications posted by the Vietnamese developer were removed.
When an Apple official was approached and asked what the source of the problem was, they did not rule out a direct breach of Apple systems. This of course, with met with anxiety of existing members of iTunes.
To attempt to calm the anxiety, Apple suggested that all affected users should change their passwords and that they contact their banks to attempt to get the transactions reversed.
Every user of iTunes is now alert. No-one knows yet how Nguyen got into all of those accounts, if they do, they're not telling. It may have been through e-mail scams or phishing websites; but the possibility of it being a direct result of the iTines servers being breached is making Apple increasingly worried.
There are more and more reports coming in through various forums and community websites of those that had their accounts breached stating other applications have been purchased as well as those of Nguyen, which makes me, and everyone else wonder - has iTunes been hacked?
This is something many people would never imagine happening, but it has happened. Over the weekend of July 3rd - July 4th, iTunes was hacked.
Who is the man of the moment? Mr Thuat Nguyen, a Vietnamese developer.
Nguyen managed to boost 42 applications owned by him to the top 50 in the paid electronic books category by hacking a series of accounts owned by many members of iTunes. On each account, he has purchased applications owned by him as much as the account funds would allow.
[slide]http://i50.tinypic.com/5yvm1u.jpg[/slide]
Looking through various tweets, some people claim to have lost as much as $200 on applications they have not personally bought. Some people have managed to have the transactions reversed by their credit card companies, too many users however are having difficulties getting their funds back.
[slide]http://i46.tinypic.com/353c9s3.png[/slide]
Apple, upon realising this breach, banned Nguyen for violations including fraudulent purchase patterns,which broke the developer Program License Agreement. With this, all of the applications posted by the Vietnamese developer were removed.
When an Apple official was approached and asked what the source of the problem was, they did not rule out a direct breach of Apple systems. This of course, with met with anxiety of existing members of iTunes.
To attempt to calm the anxiety, Apple suggested that all affected users should change their passwords and that they contact their banks to attempt to get the transactions reversed.
Every user of iTunes is now alert. No-one knows yet how Nguyen got into all of those accounts, if they do, they're not telling. It may have been through e-mail scams or phishing websites; but the possibility of it being a direct result of the iTines servers being breached is making Apple increasingly worried.
There are more and more reports coming in through various forums and community websites of those that had their accounts breached stating other applications have been purchased as well as those of Nguyen, which makes me, and everyone else wonder - has iTunes been hacked?
