'App farming' update: Apple says only 400 accounts compromised

Those bastards got me for $800 last night. Spent 2 hours with Apple. They suck. I will never purchase another Apple device again. If this many people are having issues it is clearly insufficient security at Apple and not a "weak" password issue. Way to pass on the blame Apple. You suck.

Just yesterday I had $300 worth of unauthorized purchases in iMobsters (by Storm8) show up on my iTunes account... :(

@Jordan

>>"Sorry, I forgot. If you don't have love and praise for Apple, don't say anything at all because you're a troll!"

Glad we cleared that up. If you come on a board dedicated not to general computing, but to all things Apple, and you come -just- to spew negativity, then I guess you're what they call a troll. Because looking at your post statistics, you log the most posts by far on TUAW. I'm not going to be so presumptuous to say that I've read every one of them (I'm just not that into you), but you'd be hard pressed to come up with a double-digit percentage of positive posts. Anyone -that- negative is, statistically speaking, what is known as a troll on the message boards. You just wait for an unsuspecting ounce of optimism to come by and pounce on it, much like that namesake under the bridge preys on unwary travelers. Sure, Apple isn't flawless, but by god, they put out some nice kit, too! You wouldn't know it from your posts, though. Some others on the board have speculated that you're paid by a competitor for your posts. I half agree with them: I think you're paid by TUAW to keep the boards lively, if not interesting.

Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative. Otherwise, please forget your password.
(My apologies to Mr. Mercer)

At long last: I've explained it enough times already. If you've chosen to ignore it, that's your fault.

My iTunes account was also hacked this past July 4th weekend. Four separate purchases totally about $170. All apps and a few ibooks. After calling my bank and canceling my account I accessed my iTunes account last night (July 6th) and noticed a 5th order for 25 bucks that was stopped by iTunes only because my bank account number had been canceled. I had a strong password. I don't fall for phishing scams. I may have malware, not savvy enough to know.
Only 400 customers got hacked, eh? Wonder how come I got to be so lucky as to be one of them?

I'll repeat what someone else said, how do you know they were stolen from out of Apple system. For all we know, this guy was randomly guessing emails, or was also into spamming and had a list of confirmed emails that way and has been toying around looking for folks with easy to research security questions etc.

I mean he was a guy that seemed to have no issue with spamming the App store with a bunch of single issue comics that may have also be plagiarized.

I'll put down money that at most 50 of the 400 accounts actually had strong passwords, security questions etc. And it's likely more like 10 of the 400

I had an issue in early June; I woke up one morning to an iTunes email indicating I had bought a whole bunch of apps that I definitely didn't. Fortunately, the thief didn't change my password or email address, so I was able to get in and change it, then notify Apple and my credit card company. (While I am positive it was my carelessness of accessing iTunes with my iPhone over an unsecured network--nothing to do with my credit card--I had to get a new one anyway to get reimbursed. Very annoying and caused a lot of grief, having that credit card number change.)

While my password was decent, that didn't matter; I'm sure it was sniffed off the wi-fi at Barnes & Noble. Stupid stupid stupid. At least my credit card company and Apple made it right, though it took a while to get my iTunes account reactivated.

I was not personally defrauded via this, but my wife was. It started with an invoice received on 4th July stating that she had purchased a £55 app (Mos Killer Super Developer) which she most certainly did not purchase. I immediately reported this as an issue and said that this was not purchased by my wife. Not aware that there was a major issue, I assumed it was a one-off oddity and expected Apple to resolve it. Within 24 hours another £60 worth of apps and music were purchased via her account before we cancelled the card, changed the account password and removed the card details. Between cancelling the card and changing the password, another album of music was purchased but was left pending as the card had been declined.

We are now working with our card supplier to reclaim the money and Apples responses so far have not been particularly supportive e.g. "As for the pending order it has been forgiven, which means you will no longer have to pay for it. Please note this is a one time exception due to this incident."

My wife uses a MacBook with the Apple Firewall and Intego 5 AV which checks for updates every few hours. While she is fairly well versed on the computer, I handle all the techy stuff and am by no means a troll. Admittedly her account password could have been stronger but it there a trade off finding a password that makes her account secure enough while being easy enough for her to remember.

Itune's security really sucks. I had my account hijacked a few months ago , somebody was able to change my email address and password without me being notified and then make $200 worth of orders. I caught it within hours of the account being hijacked because I was checking my bank account and saw the charges but I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't caught it that day. If Apple had just informed me that someone changed the username and password on my account like most other merchants do I could have cancelled my credit card before the guy started running up charges. I love Apple through and through but ITune's security is irresponsible, if they aren't careful they are going to have a huge security breach that is going to turn people off to iTunes.

Well let's see...if he doesn't like Apple, why is Jordan logging the most posts on TUAW? Because he's a troll?

Like I'm saying..we don't know because Jordan won't admit anything or explain anything.

I consider myself honoured that I am one of only 400 people in the world to have been defrauded through iTunes Store. Around £120 worth of iTunes music and applications were downloaded on my account (whoever it was had dreadful taste!) I am not sure how the previous correspondent knew who the culprit was as all the purchases appear to have been made by me. Apple eventually refunded the money "as a courtesy" after continued hectoring on my part. They told me that it was up to my bank to refund the money. This is the only time I have ever had a fraudulent transaction on the internet and it happened with Apple's site, which amazes me. (P.S. I am not a Windows user, and I am not a troll!)