Over the weekend, reports emerged that Apple’s App Store had been hacked. A rogue developer seems to have hacked people’s iTunes account and purchased apps developed a Thuat Nyugen.
Apple’s App Store let’s you purchase apps, songs and movies with a single password if you have your credit card saved n your account, which is usually the case.
Two astute developers discovered that someone was hacking into people’s iTunes account and making purchases of certain apps in turn helping those apps to rank higher. This seems to have helped 41 apps in Books category rank in the Top 50!
(image credit: AppleInsider)
AppleInsider has a detailed report on how the AppStore accounts are being compromised attacks based in China. In fact, compromised accounts are being auctioned out to various people where they can rake up to $250 in charges.
Apple has responded today with this message
The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.
Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.
If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.
I recommend checking your recent iTunes purchases to see if there was any fraudulent activity. It may also be a good time to change your App Store password to something that can’t be cracked easily.
With Apple handling billions of transactions through the App Store, there are bound to be fraudulent activity like anything involving money. But, I would have expected a little more decisive response to this and maybe open up a way to file for refunds for these fraudulent purchases from Apple. Instead, they have left us at the mercy of the credit card issuers.
Was your iTunes account hacked? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter @TopiPhone.
