Apple’s Find My iPhone service is a security feature introduced in iPhone devices. It’s meant to help the owner locate a stolen or lost iPhone, but it seems that the feature has turned out to be a double edged sword. According to a report from the Sydney Morning Herald from Australia, some Australian Mac, iPhone, and iPad owners have found themselves locked out from their own devices.
As you can see in the image above, owners have found themselves hacked by a person (or group) calling themselves Oleg Pliss. The hackers have since demanded payments of anywhere between $50-$100 that will be transferred to an anonymous PayPal account as a form of ransom in order to get their phones unlocked. Given that it devices locked across the board, there is a chance that the hacker(s) managed to gain access to their iCloud accounts.
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This is a very unfortunate problem to have. I think this proves that connecting our phones to the internet via online accounts are not a very good idea, and the Cell phone kill switch can have similar problems as well.
If this problems becomes widespread, I think people will go back to using regular cell phones, and home telephones since it can be very inconvenient being locked out of your own phone because of a hacker who hacked your account.
As you can see in the image above, owners have found themselves hacked by a person (or group) calling themselves Oleg Pliss. The hackers have since demanded payments of anywhere between $50-$100 that will be transferred to an anonymous PayPal account as a form of ransom in order to get their phones unlocked. Given that it devices locked across the board, there is a chance that the hacker(s) managed to gain access to their iCloud accounts.
Read More
This is a very unfortunate problem to have. I think this proves that connecting our phones to the internet via online accounts are not a very good idea, and the Cell phone kill switch can have similar problems as well.
If this problems becomes widespread, I think people will go back to using regular cell phones, and home telephones since it can be very inconvenient being locked out of your own phone because of a hacker who hacked your account.