Hackers: to wipe up 300M iPhones unless Apple pays ransom
The group described themselves as "Turkish Crime Family" have demanded $75,000 in Bitcoin or Ethereum cryptocurrency, according to Motherboard.
"I just want my money and thought this would be an interesting report that a lot of Apple customers would be interested in reading and hearing.", a hacker said
They also claimed to have credentials which would allow them access to hundreds of millions of users’ accounts, and threatening to wipe a number of them unless they are paid.
Screenshots of supposed discussions with Apple show Apple’s security team requesting that the gang delete a YouTube video where they supposedly access an elderly woman’s iCloud account.
It is not clear if the group even exists. Beyond the evidence shown to Motherboard (screenshotted emails), there’s little proof.
An expert from British computer security Graham Cluley, writing on Bitdefender’s Hot for Security blog, says, "What we don’t know is whether the email exchanges between the hackers and Apple are real or faked, and – indeed – whether the so-called “Turkish Crime Gang” really has access to a large number of Apple users" credentials. "If it’s true that the hackers are attempting to engage with the media in an attempt to increase their chances of a substantial payout then that would be in line with an increasingly common technique deployed by extortionists."
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