Apple Account Information Stolen by iPhone Hackers
With the advancement of technologies, IT applications are used by several users at their workplaces. The use of computer systems, internet, online databases and smart phones has become so common. These techniques provide various benefits to its users but some issues of security and privacy are encountered that are known as computer security breaches. There are several news and articles available on internet regarding security breaches and popular hack cases. Now in this report, we will emphasize on a news of computer security breach occurred in 2015 and a popular hack case that happened between 2012 and 2016.
The selected news of computer security breach is Apple Account Information stolen by iPhone Hackers.
Apple Inc. is a famous multi-national company among people worldwide. Its business products such as iPhone, iPad and others are highly preferred to use by smart phone users. It is ranked as one of the most promising companies in America that makes the technology giants a main target for hackers. The incident of information hacked from Apple’s accounts was happened in September, 2015.
In this incident of information breach, more than 225,000 iPhone users have had their Apple account information that they compromised by malware. This malware was nicknamed KeyRaider. In this attack hackers have targeted those individuals who have been using “jailbroken” iPhones (IdentityForce®, 2017).
This security breach of Apple Account Information has carried out by hackers through malware attack. KeyRaider malware has taken sensitive information from iPhones that includes Apple ID of an individual, password, Unique ID of iPhone and information regarding App store purchases and sends it back to the attacker. Once this attack takes place, the owners of iPhones are not able to recover their iPhones (Hooper, 2017). It is also happened that phones of some owners have locked along with an exchange or ransom demand from hackers that owner will get access of phone again once he/she will pay to hacker. The information of Apple’s Account on iPhone was not only stolen for personal use of hackers, but they also created a software that allows anyone to access the credentials of the victims. They use this information to download iTunes app free of cost (Redmond Channel Partner, 2017). According to report of CNN Money Reports, approximately 20,000 people have downloaded this software.
The above discussed breach was a malware attack. Hackers used malware to access information of iPhone’s Account. Therefore to resolve this problem, it is necessary to know that how malware attack can be controlled. Following are some possible solutions for Apple’s Information Breach.
- To get prevention from virus like malware, advanced anti-virus are required to use such as Kaspersky. Through anti-virus, virus can be detected from any device and can also fix. So first possible solution for this malware attack should be use of advanced and updated anti-virus (in, 2017).
- Another way to get rid of this problem is to use firewall. It is an in-built software into our operating system and must be in on mode. It helps to restrict an unknown entity into our system that can be vulnerable for system. By giving alert it aware users about a vulnerable entity. Firewall enhances the effectiveness of anti-virus software. So firewall security can be used to get prevention from malware attacks (Greene, 2017).
- The security options of iPhone are so powerful and that must be set properly by its users. It is an effective way to prevent iPhone from malware or any other harmful attacks (Healthcare IT News, 2017).
- While using iPhone or any other smartphone, a user should be careful while opening any new or unknown email (tcitechs.com, 2017).Most of the hackers send virus attachments in emails and when users open those attachments, attached virus script starts accessing information from your mobile. Email should be scanned with antivirus before open it.
- The awareness and knowledge about mobile phone threats is necessary. If users of iPhone have heard anything wrong about security of iPhone then he/she should immediately update security software and must ensure that particular threat is resolved.
Sony Hacking Incident
In above case of information breach, hackers use malware KeyRaider for accessing information of iPhone users. But it could have been controlled if users were used above listed security tools into their iPhones. Besides this, it is responsibility of Apple to be prepare to control this type of information breaches immediately. After this incident, Apple suggested to iPhone users to be keep their phones more protected by using important security parameters and tools that are available on Apple’s website. Apple did all potential efforts to control this big problem of information breach and provide surety to customers that everything will be normal soon.
The popular case of hacking that was happened between 2012 and 2016 was Sony Hacking Incident that was happened in 2014.
It is found by employees of Sony Company that their computers were hijacked by the image of red skeleton with the words “Hacked by #GOP”. After few weeks, the personal information of employees including their salary information and email exchanges were seen public online. During investigation of this case, it was found that this hacking attack is conducted by cybercriminals of North Korea. This hacking case of Sony is considered most popular hacking case of 2014. The group of hackers called itself GOP i.e. Guardians of Peace. Besides hacking of salary and personal information of employees, hackers also stole Sony pictures and leaving network of Sony crippled for days (Riskbasedsecurity.com, 2017).
Due to this attack, the most affected individuals were employees of Sony Company and company itself. Hackers hacked past and present records of approximately 4000 employees of Sony. This information was not only used by hackers but also shared online. This was very bad for company’s reputation and customers’ trust on Sony (Wired.com, 2017). The GOP hackers made public their contact information for a brief period of time and researchers of RBS used this opportunity to contact with that group by sending and receiving messages. The provided link in that contact information was not so much useful. After analyzing further, the leaked data summary is found that includes 33,880 files, 4864 folders, 47426 unique social security numbers and 3253 SSN appeared more than 100 times. This is essential information of Sony Company that was leaked by hackers (Huffingtonpost.com, 2017).
The attack was carried out by accessing database of Sony by hackers in which sensitive information about employees, their salaries and exchanging information by them, were stored. After investigating about this hacking case of Sony, it is not cleared yet, how this attack was carried out. It is estimated that most of the hacks like this starts from phishing attack that involves emails sending to employees with malicious attachments, so they click on it and hackers can access their information (MakeUseOf, 2017). Besides this, a link of a website can also be attached with emails so that the employees click on it and malware downloaded automatically into their systems. Hackers use these harmful scripts or programs just to access information of users from their systems (Hacked: Hacking Finance, 2017). Once company’s system becomes infected, hackers can map the network and can steal required information such as administrative passwords to gain access of other systems over network to steal confidential data (HackRead, 2017). After conducting this attack, next day hackers show the similar sensitive information over internet that they stole to map and access Sony’s internal networks. Most of the important documents and files are stolen under this hacking attack that include list of routers, switches, load balancers, usernames and passwords. Therefore, it was really a big and vulnerable hacking attack that badly influenced Sony. In this hacking attack, near about 100 terabytes of data of Sony Company has stolen and it was slowly releasing on internet in batches. On the behalf of this discussion, we can estimate that hacking cases are so brutal and vulnerable for anyone or any company. A huge amount of important data can be leaked or damaged in few minutes due to hacking attacks. This hack of information was so shameful and embarrassing for Sony. There is one question regarding stolen data that is not yet cleared that was data destroyed or just stolen. According to FBI flash alert, attack on Sony might have included malware to destroy data on its systems and malware is capable to wiping data from systems in an effective way that data is unrecoverable. So it can be said that data has destroyed from Sony systems after stealing whole data. In this way, Sony was influenced by this vulnerable hacking attack that was difficult to control by company for many years.
Sony did all potential efforts to get prevention from this attack. But the effect of the attack was so vulnerable. But still, there are some basic possible solutions that could have been implemented by Sony to prevent phishing attack. Those possible solutions are listed as below:
- Due to weak security of computer systems or networks of Sony, hackers got success in hacking of employees’ information in Sony. Employees should have installed anti-virus into their systems to detect virus and to fix it. Through phishing attack the hackers were inserted virus into system, so in this case antivirus could be helpful.
- The database security is also necessary and to achieve this database scanning tool is required to use. These tools can be Oscanner, Kaspersky and McAfee etc. These tools scan database and identify bugs and errors that can help hackers to steal information. Therefore, Sony Company could have used this for information security.
- The usage of firewall and other security tools is also important to sustain long term security of system. Firewall allows users to restrict entry of any unknown entity into system that can be harmful for system (SearchSecurity, 2017).
In this way, by implementing above listed solutions, Sony could have prevent its database and computer systems from hackers.
Conclusion
At last we conclude that to control above types of vulnerable attacks of hacking and computer security breaches, it is necessary to be used security tools from very early stage of using IT technologies. If companies will be careful about security and privacy of their computer systems and networks from its initial stages then it is possible that harmful phishing and hacking attacks can be controlled easily.
References
Blog.tcitechs.com. (2017). The Most Controversial Hacking Cases of 2015. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://blog.tcitechs.com/blog/the-most-controversial-hacking-cases-of-2015
Databreachtoday.in. (2017). Latest breaking news articles on data security breach. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://www.databreachtoday.in/news
Greene, T. (2017). Biggest data breaches of 2015. Network World. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://www.networkworld.com/article/3011103/security/biggest-data-breaches-of-2015.html
Hooper, C. (2017). Ten Ways to Prevent Viruses and Malware – TopTenREVIEWS. Top Ten Reviews. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://www.toptenreviews.com/software/security/best-antivirus-software/ten-ways-to-prevent-viruses-and-malware.html
HackRead. (2017). Top 15 Cyber Attacks and Security Breaches in 2015. Retrieved 6 April 2017, from https://www.hackread.com/top-15-cyber-attacks-security-breaches-in-2015/
Healthcare IT News. (2017). 7 largest data breaches of 2015. Retrieved 6 April 2017, from https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/7-largest-data-breaches-2015
Huffingtonpost.com. (2017). Security Breach. Retrieved 6 April 2017, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/security-breach/
Hacked: Hacking Finance. (2017). 10 Most Notorious Hackers of All Time | Hacked: Hacking Finance. Retrieved 6 April 2017, from https://hacked.com/hackers/
IdentityForce®.(2017). September 2015 iPhone Hack. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://www.identityforce.com/blog/apple-account-information-stolen-by-iphone-hackers
MakeUseOf. (2017). 5 Of The World’s Most Famous Hackers & What Happened To Them. Retrieved 6 April 2017, from https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-of-the-worlds-most-famous-hackers-what-happened-to-them/
Redmond Channel Partner. (2017). 2015 Security Review: Top Hacks, Breaches and Cyber Scams — Redmond Channel Partner. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://rcpmag.com/articles/2015/12/01/top-security-hacks.aspx
Riskbasedsecurity.com. (2017). A Breakdown and Analysis of the December, 2014 Sony Hack. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2014/12/a-breakdown-and-analysis-of-the-december-2014-sony-hack/
SearchSecurity. (2017). What is data breach? – Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/data-breach
Wired.com. (2017). Sony Got Hacked Hard: What We Know and Don’t Know So Far. Retrieved 8 April 2017, from https://www.wired.com/2014/12/sony-hack-what-we-know/
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