The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested a boyfriend from London on Tuesday on suspicion of "Computer Misuse Act as well as extortion offences," who according to Motherboard, "may live on connected to the ongoing attempted extortion of Apple past times a grouping calling itself the Turkish Crime Family."
Last week, the hacking grouping claimed to accept access to over 300 meg iCloud accounts as well as threatened Apple to remotely wipe information from those millions of Apple devices unless Apple pays it $75,000 inwards Bitcoin or Ethereum, or $100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards.
Motherboard broke the flush afterward ane of the members of Turkish Crime Family shared screenshots of emails betwixt the hacking grouping as well as Apple's safety squad alongside the publication.
Shortly afterward the extortion news, Apple released a statement, proverb that in that place accept non been whatever breaches to its servers as well as databases; instead, the information inwards possession alongside hackers appears to live on from previously compromised third-party services, such every bit LinkedIn.
The fellowship too said it is working alongside constabulary enforcement to position the criminals.
"Apple is actively monitoring to forestall unauthorised access to user accounts as well as is working alongside constabulary enforcement to position the criminals involved," Apple said inwards the statement.Although the NCA has non elaborated farther virtually the arrest except that the human being has been bailed pending farther inquiries, around other fellow member of the same criminal gang confirmed Motherboard via an electronic mail that the arrested fellow member hasn't been online afterward the alleged raid.
"To protect against these type of attacks, nosotros ever recommend that users ever role strong passwords, non role those same passwords across sites as well as plough on two-factor authentication."
Moreover, the grouping claimed his friend who was at his family during the raid managed to celluloid the incident, though Motherboard, who received a re-create of it, has declined to post the video publicly at this time.
Arrest Doesn’t Mean Your iCloud Data is Safe
At this moment, nosotros are non exclusively certain that the arrested human being is truly linked to the Turkish Crime Family, although the human being is suspected of having committed blackmail as well as unauthorised access of computers alongside the intent to commit or facilitate the committee of farther offences, according to the warrant Motherboard received inwards an email.
But if he comes out to live on the fellow member of the same hacking group, it doesn't hateful that Apple extortion threat has gone completely, every bit other members of the hacking grouping are yet out in that place alongside alleged compromised icloud accounts.
It's possible that remaining members of Turkish Crime Family, inwards panic, become undercover without doing anything, simply there's yet the possibility of them remotely wiping victim's Apple devices as well as resetting iCloud accounts, if they truly accept the capability to produce what they claim.
The hacking grouping has given Apple a deadline until Apr vii to pay upwardly the ransom.
So, if you lot haven't done yet, change your iCloud passwords immediately as well as enable two-step authentication to add together an extra layer of safety to your describe organisation human relationship inwards society to proceed your iCloud describe organisation human relationship rubber from hackers.
