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Does Apple Need To Get Serious About Security?
An anonymous reader writes "An article at The Verge makes the case that Apple's development of its cloud services hasn't been accompanied by the necessary effort to ramp up security to match users' increasing levels of risk. As evidence, they use a recent (and very simple) security hole that allowed anyone to reset an Apple ID password with just a user's email address and birth date. Apple's initial response failed to fully stop the exploit, and then it took several days for them to fix the issue. 'A server-side attack on Apple's cloud could get customers' credit card numbers and addresses, device backups with their encryption keys — as well as contacts and Apple IDs — anonymously and in bulk. Those systems may be defended like a castle, but bandits have plenty of places to chip away at private information at the periphery: intercepting wireless location data, cracking the still-private protocols for services like FaceTime or iMessage, or imitating iTunes updates to install to take over a user's phone. There's nothing sexy about securing these systems. None of them contribute directly to Apple's bottom line. And when it came to securing a business netting it an estimated $2 billion each year, Apple locked the screen door and left the front door open, without asking anyone else to check that the house was safe.' The article also points out that many other cloud service providers have detailed privacy and security policies, and actively participate in developing best practices, whereas Apple's procedures are shrouded in the company's typical secrecy. The article comes alongside reports of a way for people to DDoS other users' iMessage box."
"Anybody could access ... with just AppleID and date of birth" is not true. You needed someone's AppleID, date of birth, _and_ the knowledge of a clever hack. As a reaction, Apple first shut down the site, then fixed the problem.
The "social engineering hack" won't work anymore once you switch your AppleID to two factor authentication. The disadvantage is that if you lose two of (password, backup code, trusted device), Apple _cannot_ restore your account. It becomes unusable. The reason social engineering won't work is that even a proven genuine account owner cannot get help.
Paris Hilton was a spokesperson for Danger's HipTop (Sidekick on T-Mobile). That was the phone that got hacked. And her endorsement of the phone was well known prior to the hacking. They had huge Hollywood parties and she appeared in public using the phone regularly.
Apple wasn't involved.
Of course it was. But the fact that "Paris Hilton uses it" meant immensely more to most people than "she got owned because it was absurdly easy to hack" demonstrates security is not something that matters at all to most of Apple's customers, and thus is not something that Apple feels a need to matter to them.
Wait. When Paris Hilton's phone got hacked a number of years ago, it was a T-Mobile Sidekick.
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