A new band of hackers , styling itself the “ Turkish Crime Family ” , is claiming it has secured the details of some 200m iCloud accounts and that if Apple doesn’t pay Attack.Ransom a whopping $ 75,000 bitcoin or ethereum ransom Attack.Ransom ( or $ 100,000 in iTunes gift cards ) it will wipe the lot . First , Apple says its systems haven’t been breached Attack.Databreach . The company told Naked Security : There have not been any breaches Attack.Databreach in any of Apple ’ s systems including iCloud and Apple ID . The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained Attack.Databreach from previously compromised Attack.Databreach third-party services . So 200m accounts obtained Attack.Databreach from previously compromised Attack.Databreach third party services is OK ? Obviously not , but there ’ s no suggestion that Apple itself is responsible for any compromised security . The Turkish Crime Family itself appears to be new on the security scene , believed to have started life in Istanbul but now resident in Green Lanes , north London , according to one report . Helpfully , the organisation has a Twitter account . Another curious facet of the alleged breach is that asking for payment Attack.Ransom in extremely traceable iTunes vouchers seems more than slightly curious ; why would you not ask for something with a less clean audit trail ? The group itself disputes the amount that ’ s been reported and blames a media relations operative ( presumably the same one who put an email address for media inquiries on the Twitter profile ) : This sum of $ 75,000 is incorrect , this was submitted by one of our old media guys that is not a part of our group . The sum is a lot higher The organisation has posted what it claims is video evidence to the Motherboard site . David Kennerley , director of threat research at Webroot , is among the first to wonder whether the threat is actually real . There are a lot of questions that need to be answered such as , do these hackers really have access Attack.Databreach to the data they claim ? How did they get hold of such a large amount of data ? Finally , there are still people who believe their Apple hardware is completely safe from malware just because it ’ s Apple . It ’ s great kit and it works beautifully but nobody is safe Logging into and erasing 200 million accounts would take some time . If it started happening , Apple could easily block the attack . Also , they ’ d have to have some sort of server or admin-level access to be able to wipe or delete accounts , or even a single server ’ s-worth of accounts . The Turkish Crime Family having that level of access would either entail an incredibly serious , hitherto unknown breach in Apple ’ s defenses ( improbable ) , or the help of someone on the inside ( more likely , but still doubtful ) . If an Apple user wasn ’ t backing up their entire device to the Apple Cloud , a device that was wiped wouldn ’ t have everything for Apple to restore . I suspect there are quite a few users that don ’ t do Cloud backups , or only back up a portion of their data .

A new band of hackers , styling itself the “ Turkish Crime Family ” , is claiming it has secured the details of some 200m iCloud accounts and that if Apple doesn’t pay Attack.Ransom a whopping $ 75,000 bitcoin or ethereum ransom Attack.Ransom ( or $ 100,000 in iTunes gift cards ) it will wipe the lot . First , Apple says its systems haven’t been breached Attack.Databreach . The company told Naked Security : There have not been any breaches Attack.Databreach in any of Apple ’ s systems including iCloud and Apple ID . The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained Attack.Databreach from previously compromised Attack.Databreach third-party services . So 200m accounts obtained Attack.Databreach from previously compromised Attack.Databreach third party services is OK ? Obviously not , but there ’ s no suggestion that Apple itself is responsible for any compromised security . The Turkish Crime Family itself appears to be new on the security scene , believed to have started life in Istanbul but now resident in Green Lanes , north London , according to one report . Helpfully , the organisation has a Twitter account . Another curious facet of the alleged breach is that asking for payment Attack.Ransom in extremely traceable iTunes vouchers seems more than slightly curious ; why would you not ask for something with a less clean audit trail ? The group itself disputes the amount that ’ s been reported and blames a media relations operative ( presumably the same one who put an email address for media inquiries on the Twitter profile ) : This sum of $ 75,000 is incorrect , this was submitted by one of our old media guys that is not a part of our group . The sum is a lot higher The organisation has posted what it claims is video evidence to the Motherboard site . David Kennerley , director of threat research at Webroot , is among the first to wonder whether the threat is actually real . There are a lot of questions that need to be answered such as , do these hackers really have access Attack.Databreach to the data they claim ? How did they get hold of such a large amount of data ? Finally , there are still people who believe their Apple hardware is completely safe from malware just because it ’ s Apple . It ’ s great kit and it works beautifully but nobody is safe Logging into and erasing 200 million accounts would take some time . If it started happening , Apple could easily block the attack . Also , they ’ d have to have some sort of server or admin-level access to be able to wipe or delete accounts , or even a single server ’ s-worth of accounts . The Turkish Crime Family having that level of access would either entail an incredibly serious , hitherto unknown breach in Apple ’ s defenses ( improbable ) , or the help of someone on the inside ( more likely , but still doubtful ) . If an Apple user wasn ’ t backing up their entire device to the Apple Cloud , a device that was wiped wouldn ’ t have everything for Apple to restore . I suspect there are quite a few users that don ’ t do Cloud backups , or only back up a portion of their data .

Apple is reassuring customers that its systems have not been breached Attack.Databreach while a hacker , or hackers , threaten to remotely wipe hundreds of millions iPhones of all their data , including photos , videos , and messages . The hackers are using an alleged cache of stolen email accounts and passwords as leverage in an attempt to extort Attack.Ransom the world ’ s most valuable company . They claim to have access Attack.Databreach to as many as 559 million Apple email and iCloud accounts , Vice blog Motherboard reported on Tuesday . The group , calling itself “ Turkish Crime Family , ” said it would delete its alleged list of compromised login credentials only after Apple pays Attack.Ransom it $ 75,000 in cryptocurrency , either Bitcoin or rival Ether , or $ 100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards , Motherboard reported . The group has given Apple ( aapl ) a deadline of April 7 to meet its demands . Though Apple has not officially confirmed the authenticity of the data that the hackers say they have , an Apple spokesperson told Fortune in an emailed statement that , if the list is legitimate , it was not obtained Attack.Databreach through any hack Attack.Databreach of Apple . “ There have not been any breaches Attack.Databreach in any of Apple ’ s systems including iCloud and Apple ID , ” the spokesperson said . “ The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained Attack.Databreach from previously compromised Attack.Databreach third-party services ” . A person familiar with the contents of the alleged data set said that many of the email accounts and passwords contained within it matched data leaked Attack.Databreach in a past breach Attack.Databreach at LinkedIn . The company representative declined to elaborate on what steps Apple had taken to monitor the situation . The spokesperson merely noted that such measures , whatever they may be , are “ standard procedure ” . Apple customers who secure their iCloud accounts with the same passwords they use on other online accounts—especially ones at LinkedIn , Yahoo ( yhoo ) , Dropbox , and other sites recently revealed to have suffered big breaches over the past few years—should adopt new passwords that are long , strong , and unique . Many security experts also recommend storing them in a password manager , and activating two-factor authentication , an additional layer of security , where available .

By now , you may have heard that a hacking organization identifying itself as the Turkish Crime Family has gone hunting for a very big fish : It said that it has credentials for hundreds of millions of Apple accounts of various sorts ( including email and iCloud ) , and it ’ s threatening to wipe all of the iPhones in the cache unless a hefty ransom is paid Attack.Ransom . The group is asking for Attack.Ransom either $ 75,000 in Bitcoin or $ 100,000 in iTunes gift cards before the April 7 deadline . Turkish Crime Family ( let ’ s call them TCF ) was first reported by Vice ’ s Motherboard as having 559 million total accounts—and other reports say there are either 200 million or 300 million vulnerable iPhone accounts . Regardless of the number , it ’ s a lot—and on the surface the news , if TCF really does have those credentials , would indicate that Apple has suffered a major data breach Attack.Databreach . Apple said in a media statement : “ There have not been any breaches Attack.Databreach in any of Apple ’ s systems including iCloud and Apple ID . The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained Attack.Databreach from previously compromised Attack.Databreach third-party services . We 're actively monitoring to prevent unauthorized access to user accounts and are working with law enforcement to identify the criminals involved . To protect against these type of attacks , we always recommend that users always use strong passwords , not use those same passwords across sites and turn on two-factor authentication . '' Which means that the danger , if it does exist , isn ’ t new for these Apple users . And indeed , many of the accounts could be defunct : Some of the addresses are @ mac.com and @ me.com addresses , which could be almost two decades old . Motherboard confirmed a back-and-forth conversation between the hackers and Apple security teams , but TCF has yet to publicly provide solid proof of how and what information they have , besides a YouTube video ( now removed ) that Motherboard said shows someone logging into an iCloud account . Meanwhile , ZDNet said that it was able to get a data sample of 54 allegedly breached accounts from TCF—finding that they were all legitimate email addresses . The outlet also reached 10 users that said the listed pilfered passwords were correct . John Bambenek , threat systems manager of Fidelis Cybersecurity , said that he ’ s skeptical about the hacker group ’ s claims , noting that there are always people who make unfounded threats to organizations in the hope of an easy payday—or notoriety . “ The hacker group is not following what ’ s become typical operating procedure , ” he said via email . “ For example , if this were a real ransomware attack Attack.Ransom , they would be communicating privately with the company they are targeting . Based on previous incidents , the current threat has all the hallmarks of a stunt . If they really have the ability to wipe iPhones then they would have wiped a few already as ‘ proof of life ’ ” . But that said , do consumers really want to roll the dice with their pictures and other information on the phone ? Lamar Bailey , director of security research and development for Tripwire , said via email that the hackers may have indeed been able to meticulously assemble a cohesive database of previously stolen Attack.Databreach Apple credentials by making use of various former data breaches Attack.Databreach of sources outside of Apple—this is a good highlight once again of the widespread problem of password re-use . It would have required a large effort , but he noted that it could be done . “ If this is legit , the hackers would have had to obtain access Attack.Databreach to the individual user accounts via breaking the passwords of each of the user accounts or have acquired access to the Apple iCloud servers , ” he said . “ The access to each user account is much more realistic since we have seen numerous reports of all the weak passwords people use for their computers and accounts ” . And , he added , if the hackers have password access to individual user accounts , they can indeed erase phones remotely and change passwords for the Apple account . “ The hackers can not remove backups for Apple devices from the cloud , but changing the passwords will make it hard for the legitimate users to reset and recover their devices , ” he noted . “ Once the end-user has access to their account , they will be able to restore their device ” . Apple users—and indeed all users of any online-facing service—should make sure they ’ re using strong passwords and enabling two-factor authentication as an added protection . “ Having a local backup of your device is always a good idea too . It is faster to restore a device locally than over the internet , and having a small NAS ( Network Attached Storage ) device at home for pictures and backups is a good investment to supplement the cloud backups , ” Bailey added

Security experts say they are skeptical that a group of hackers called Turkish Crime Family actually possess a cache of hundreds of millions of Apple iCloud account credentials . A more plausible explanation , they say , is that crooks used credential stuffing attacks to amass a limited number of valid Apple usernames and passwords in attempt to extort money Attack.Ransom from Apple . Earlier this week , the group identifying itself as the Turkish Crime Family claimed to have a database of 750 million iCloud.com , me.com and mac.com email addresses and credentials . “ There have not been any breaches Attack.Databreach in any of Apple ’ s systems including iCloud and Apple ID , ” Apple said in a statement . “ The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained Attack.Databreach from previously compromised Attack.Databreach third-party services ” . Hackers behind the claim are demanding Attack.Ransom Apple pay Attack.Ransom them $ 75,000 in cryptocurrency or give Attack.Ransom them $ 100,000 in iTunes vouchers , according to reports . If demands are not met by April 7 , the group said it will begin deleting data stored on iCloud accounts en masse . An independent analysis of 54 samples of the breached account data provided to ZDNet by the hackers were valid . However , security experts such as Troy Hunt , who runs the data breach repository HaveIBeenPwned.com , still isn ’ t convinced . Hunt told Threatpost he suspects the hack is a hoax , admitting he has not seen the any samples of the breached data . “ It ’ s entirely possible whoever is behind this could have username and password pairs that work on a limited number of Apple accounts in just the same way as re-used credentials will work across all sorts of other accounts , ” Hunt said . He said the Turkish Crime Family likely has a far smaller pool of valid Apple credentials than it claims . Shuman Ghosemajumder , CTO of the firm Shape Security told Threatpost he suspects the hackers may have used credential stuffing attacks , using data from previous breaches , to gain access to an undetermined number of iCloud accounts . Shape Security estimates that last year alone 3.3 billion credentials were exposed Attack.Databreach via breaches . Despite credential stuffing ’ s low success rate of 1 percent to 2 percent , Ghosemajumder said , when applied to a large enough cache of data ( purchased on the dark web by the database ) the hackers may have enough information to successfully crack thousands of Apple accounts . “ There are certainly enough credentials spilled onto the internet to think someone could use credential stuffing techniques to pull together a convincing number of valid accounts in attempt to extort Attack.Ransom Apple for ransom money Attack.Ransom , ” Ghosemajumder said . Patrick Wardle , director of research at Synack , echoed the same credential theory suggesting that breaches Attack.Databreach over the past year have given hackers ample opportunity to pull together some valid iCloud account credentials . Since approaching Apple earlier this month with its demands , the Turkish Crime Family has been inconsistent about how many account credentials it allegedly possesses . Speaking to various different media outlets , the group has said it had 200 million credentials to as many as 750 million . The hacking group said that its repository isn ’ t the result of one breach , rather multiple . On Thursday , the group claimed to have a database of 750 million credentials , 250 million of which are “ checked and working , ” according to the group . Meanwhile , Apple says it ’ s actively monitoring to prevent unauthorized access to user accounts and is working with law enforcement to identify the criminals behind the Turkish Crime Family extortion scheme Attack.Ransom .