iCloud account of Mat Honan hacked

Ex-Gizmodo staff Mat Honan was not on the receiving end of any good news, especially after he found out that his iCloud account was hacked through the use of social engineering, where this particular “hacker” never had to rely on brute force password cracking or other nefarious tools to get the job done, as Apple Tech Support “released” the password (albeit unintentionally, of course) on his behalf. First, his iCloud account was entered, before the password was reset. A Gmail password recovery email was sent over to the .mac account, and just a couple of minutes after that, an email arrived to inform him that his Google Account password had already changed. At 5:00PM, the iPhone was wiped remotely, followed by his iPad and MacBook Air a minute and five minutes later, respectively.

Shortly after, the Twitter account was taken over because a long time ago, Mat linked his Twitter account to Gizmodo’s, where said “hacker” was also able to access Gizmodo’s Twitter account after that. I guess the saying holds true, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and Apple’s iCloud does seem to be the weak link here.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Apple
Tags: Apple Inc, Hacking, icloud, Twitter