Hackers threaten to wipe iPhones if ransom not paid

A hacker or group of hackers is trying to extort Apple over a large cache of iCloud and other Apple email accounts.

The hackers, who identified themselves as “Turkish Crime Family,” demanded $75,000 in Bitcoin or Ethereum, another popular crypto-currency, or $100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards in exchange for not deleting the alleged cache of data.

“I just want my money,” one of the hackers stated.

The hackers provided screenshots of alleged emails between the group and members of Apple’s security team.

“Are you willing to share a sample of the data set?” an unnamed member of Apple’s security team wrote to the hackers a week ago, according to one of the emails stored in the account.

The hackers also uploaded a YouTube video of them allegedly logging into some of the stolen accounts.

The hackers appear to access an elderly woman’s iCloud account, which includes backed-up photos, and shows the ability to remotely wipe the device.

Now, the hackers are threatening to reset a number of the iCloud accounts and remotely wipe Apple devices on April 7, unless Apple pays the requested amount.

The hackers claim to have access to over 300 million Apple email accounts. The hackers seem to be inconsistent in their stories. One of the hackers claimed to have 559 million accounts.

Google home devices

to start playing ads

Google Home owners complained online about how their personal assistants started spew- ing ads out of the blue. According to a Reddit topic, the ads were appended at the end of daily briefings Google Home devices provide device owners each morning.

The “My Day” briefings usually include daily weather predictions, commute information, and calendar reminders. Google Home played “Beauty and the Beast” ads. According to Reddit users, the Google Home assistant started promoting Disney’s Beauty and the Beast movie.

Multiple users confirmed hearing the ad. The immediate reaction, on both Twitter and Reddit, was full of vitriol, many questioning why they paid $129 for an ads-playing speaker. Many also vowed to not buy a Google Home device ever, remembering that Google built its financial empire on ads, and not search results (which are accurate, but don’t generate money).

Google: It’s not an ad Google refused to call the Beauty and the Beast reminder an ad, saying this was their engineers playing with new methods of surfacing interesting content in daily briefings. “This wasn’t intended to be an ad,” said a Google spokesperson regarding the incident.

“What’s circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content. We’re continuing to experiment with new ways to surface unique content for users and we could have done better in this case.”

The My Day briefing lasted 11 seconds, while the “Beauty and the Beast” ad played for 15. To be fair, the Google Home assistant continued to “surface” new content after the movie ad by promoting the day’s headlines.

Tech support scam

syncs alerts

An application named Event Monitor is a tech support scam with a twist, working by monitoring the Windows event logs, and showing a popup with an alarming message every time it detects an app crash.

The message, which only appears after an application crashes, may convince some users to call a telephone number showed on screen where an operator is eagerly waiting to convince the victim to buy all sorts of unneeded apps and services.

Event Monitor is distributed via software installs, users can protect against this threat by paying close attention to what they install on their PCs. Event Monitor appears to operate out of India.

Samsung leaking customer information

The website of a company handling the shipment of Samsung products is currently leaking data about Samsung customers in an appalling manner.

The issue came to light yesterday when application security engineer Matt Metzger published a Medium article detailing his attempts to notify Samsung of the problem.

Even if the issue is present in the systems of AGS, a company Samsung collaborates to handle product shipments, Metzger places the blame on Samsung.

“I entrusted Samsung with my data, and that is who I hold solely responsible for safeguarding it,” Metzger says. “If Samsung’s business partner is leaking that information, Samsung needs to remedy the situation.”