Thursday, March 17, 2016

iCloud Account Ransom

Thomas Reed:

The hacker had somehow gotten access to Ericka’s iCloud account.

Using this, he was able to remotely lock her computer using iCloud’s Find My Mac feature, with a ransom message displayed on the screen.

[…]

Apple designed Find My Mac/iPhone as an anti-theft feature. It is intended to allow you to take a number of actions on a lost or stolen device, including displaying a message, locking it, locating it physically and even remotely erasing it.

[…]

It’s also important to realize that an attacker with this kind of access could remotely erase all devices connected to that iCloud account. Worse, if you have Back to My Mac turned on, the attacker could gain access to all the data on your Mac.

In my view, Find My Mac is too dangerous to enable. The benefits it offers are minimal. And there is no reason to turn on Back to My Mac if you aren’t actually using those features.

1 Comment RSS · Twitter

In my view iCloud is too dangerous to enable. The benefits it offers are minimal.

Leave a Comment