Wired reporter Mat Honan went through a terrible ordeal a few days ago — his GMail account was hacked, his Twitter account was hacked, his AppleID account was hacked and all data on his iPad, iPhone and Macbook were erased.
As this analysis from Bloomberg (which includes a link to Honan’s original story) suggests, his experience is not only another lesson in the dangers of interlinking accounts, it may also show that Apple has overtaken Microsoft as the hottest company to hack.
It’s so easy to be trusting — and so hard to remember numerous passwords and PIN numbers. Yet the fact is we’re still in the early days of Internet security. As these pieces point out, had Apple support staff not casually given away some information to the hacker, things might have turned out different. (Here’s a lesson to call centres: No matter how desperate a caller is, if they can’t answer security questions no means no). That, of course, means that the weak link is just as much technology as it is human.
Be warned. And back up everything you do locally at least once a week, and hide it somewhere safe.